Hands
by Crescentium
Summary: A mistake, an explosion and a forest, not necessarily in that order. It all comes down to hands in the end.
1. Eyes of the Dead

**Author's Notes:** This fic is part of a story arc / series I'm working on. (Same fanverse as _Case of the Red Demon_ and _Long Way To Christmas_.) Crawford and Schuldig have had a relationship since Rosenkreuz and worked as partners for a number of years. In the series timeline, this is set pre-Kapitel, but Team Schwarz does already exist. The fic developed into a "mini arc" (which I call _Shattered_) and it covers an important turning point in Crawford's and Schuldig's professional and personal lives before the events of Kapitel kick off. Consists of two stories (_Hands_ and then _Minds_ starting from ch5).

**Warning:** No adult content per se, BUT this story is one of those pesky "I can't say much in order not to spoil this" things. I'll just say that if you don't like reading about crushing emotional angst, this story is not for you.

* * *

**~ Shattered ~  
Part One: Hands**

A mistake, an explosion and a forest, not necessarily in that order. It all comes down to hands in the end.

* * *

**Chapter One  
:: Eyes of the Dead ::**

It started on an ordinary day in an extraordinary place in the middle of nowhere. The city was miles away. They had taken the car as close as possible, but it had still left a considerable hike to the river where they were supposed to kill a few people before heading back. It was a stupid assignment, in Schuldig's opinion, but apparently, Crawford had his reasons, as usual.

There was nothing usual about how the mission progressed, though.

They got as far as the river and the boat ― yacht, Crawford insisted ― and the killing, and then there was an explosion. Schuldig had anticipated it because Crawford had told him that there would be cause to duck at just the right moment, but what he hadn't expected was that something ignited and that the entire boat ― yacht ― started coming apart under them. Luckily (though knowing Crawford, Schuldig suspected there was nothing lucky about it) they had been located in a place where the blast threw them off the deck and into the water, as opposed to being blown up.

Schuldig was the first one to get his head out of the water. It took a moment from him to locate Crawford, who had (of course) hung onto a lifebuoy that brought him up on the surface. Schuldig didn't bother asking how he had come by the lifebuoy in the dark. It looked like Crawford's backpack was gone, but that was about all Schuldig bothered to make out of his partner's situation. The damned precog might have bothered to warn him, no?

Schuldig coughed out water, his hands dug deep in the dirt as he dragged himself out of the water. Crawford moved more slowly, crawled really. Schuldig didn't care. He was pissed off. He glanced over his shoulder to the burning spectacle floating downriver.

"You said, duck," the telepath said dryly. "You never said, get yourself a lifebuoy, we'll be taking a dive."

Surprisingly, there was no retort. Crawford was elbow-deep in the dirt, hanging his head. "Are you injured?" His voice was calm if a little out of breath. He removed his glasses and wiped his eyes.

Schuldig harrumphed. He found it kind of insulting that Crawford bothered to ask, since he must have known the answer. "I'm fine. No thanks to you."

"Did any of them survive?" Crawford's body was tense, his voice was tense. Schuldig caught his mind and it was tense too.

Briefly, he wondered why Crawford insisted on asking all these questions, but regardless, he closed his eyes and concentrated for a moment. "No, I can't sense anyone."

"Good," Crawford said. He dropped his head down on top of his arms, collapsing like a sack ― like a thing that wasn't Crawford. "Now come over here and check my wounds."

"Your wounds?" Schuldig didn't take it seriously at first, he wasn't even looking. He figured Crawford just wanted him to worry, so that he'd stop being pissed off. "Why don't you check them yourself?"

"Because I can't see them." Crawford's voice was matter-of-fact, as though he had just proposed that he might be suffering of a mild headache.

Schuldig glanced at Crawford, who was now lying on his stomach. Finally he saw it. The back of Crawford's head was a mess of black hair and blood and what was left of Crawford's coat was soaked in blood as well.

"Fuck, Crawford," Schuldig said. It was sheer surprise, at first. He crawled hastily on his hands and knees over to Crawford, grabbed the man's clothes, saw the injury up close. It looked serious. The second stage was shock. "Fuck, Crawford," he repeated, his tone striking a degree more urgent note.

A small metal shard was wedged in the wound at the back of Crawford's head. He could make out a dozen more, all different sizes, protruding through the remnants of his clothes. Brilliant. Schuldig stared at the blood and the pieces of metal and couldn't even tell where he should begin examining the mess. It looked like he needed a surgeon. All the mortal injuries he had seen in his life were in his mind all at once ― not helpful. Schuldig let out a long string of curses ending with, "Fuck, Crawford!"

A tense, suspended smile broke through Crawford's pained expression. "You can do that later. How bad is it?" His voice was pulled tight over his lips like a wired string. More than what he saw, Schuldig was unnerved by the question. Crawford was supposed to know how bad it was, he was supposed to have known to expect this. There was supposed to be a medical helicopter or something on its way. This should have been a joke.

"There's metal pieces or some shit," Schuldig said. He couldn't believe that the precog was making him do this, but Crawford was losing blood and time like sand in a badly built hourglass. Schuldig started to work on the clothes, tearing where he couldn't pull. When Crawford lay with his coat and shirt removed, upper body bare, Schuldig thought it looked even worse. There was so fucking much blood, it was ridiculous. The only blessing was that it looked like maybe most of the shards hadn't sank in very deep, that meant that he could remove them. He understood enough about vital anatomy to know that no internal organs were involved up on the surface where he operated. "I need to pick out the shards," he said; not to warn Crawford as much as to ask for confirmation; this was Crawford's last chance to tell him that it was a bad joke. Last chance to tell Schuldig that he shouldn't bother because a medic was on his way.

Crawford did not object. In fact, he hadn't responded to Schuldig in any way for a time now. He was completely passive, so unlike himself that it made Schuldig uneasy.

"Hey," Schuldig grabbed his shoulder tighter, "don't you go anywhere. Keep talking, so I know you're still there."

"You don't need to hear me speak to know I'm here," Crawford muttered, no, mumbled. The objection was weaker than it should have been. His breathing was faster than normal, nothing was right.

"Shut up and talk to me."

"Just take care of the wounds." His body became heavier in Schuldig's arms. The joke wasn't there; Crawford's mind disappeared.

"You so owe me for this," Schuldig hissed, outraged. It took some amount of shifting Crawford's weight around and dragging and cursing before he had got the limp body to the creek. He found a first aid kit in the remaining intact backpack. That gave him confidence that Crawford had seen all this after all. Why else would he have bothered to pack a first aid kit?

He refused to think about the fact that it would have been phenomenally stupid from Crawford to allow himself be injured in the first place, if he'd seen this coming.

Removing the shards and cleaning the wounds required some additional cursing. When Crawford was finally bandaged ― hastily, but it would have to do ― Schuldig placed him on the ground and sat down next to him. He stared at the immobile figure. While working on Crawford's body, it had been easy to ignore his thoughts and feelings. It had all been simple when he focused on his hands working with the other man's body. That's what this was, after all, just a body. Some flesh under his fingers.

But that's where the gap in the logic lay. This was not just any body. He had tasted this body. He had tasted this body for years, ever since the first time they were under each other's skin and Schuldig had put his hands on muscle and bone and touched the life underneath. Now that life was fading. The body was cold, pale, mutilated.

Scars occurred to Schuldig. He considered the experience of running his hands over Crawford's scarred back. In a morbid sort of way, the thought didn't feel entirely displeasing.

The real concern was whether Crawford was going survive for Schuldig to get that experience. He had lost a lot of blood, perhaps too much. Schuldig tried his pulse. Fast, weak, and the man's skin was cooler than he would have liked.

He peered up at the sky. It would get dark in a few hours, which meant it would get cold, too. They needed to get out of the rest of their wet clothes and make camp for the night.

Removing the clothes and hanging them out to dry was another bothersome task he cursed through. Next, he proceeded to gather some dry branches, twigs and leaves. He brought it all over to Crawford and dropped them as close to the unconscious man as possible. It occurred to him that he needed something to light it all with. Well, at least that ought to be easy ― Schuldig had brought his cigarettes. He rummaged through the pack for his lighter, hoping that it was still operational after the dive. The thing was supposed to be waterproof... ah, there. He flicked the lid open and grinned at the flame. Brilliant!

His eyes drifted toward the pack of cigarettes. Hmm. He pulled out one and found it was completely soaked.

Brilliant...

With a sigh, he threw the cigarette away and proceeded to setting up the fire. Apparently, it had recently rained in the forest or he had chosen too fresh twigs, because the kindling refused to catch fire. He was starting to get cold.

Schuldig glared at Crawford. "You had better appreciate this," he said morosely. "I'm sitting here naked in the cold trying to make a fire, because you didn't see that a bulkhead was going to explode on you. When we get out of here, I expect you to take me out to dinner and buy me something expensive."

Feeling better after making his position clear to the unconcsious Crawford, Schuldig got back to work. It took him several failed attempts and a few rearrangements of the kindling before he succeeded in getting the fire going. He dragged Crawford as close to the flames as possible. Then he went through the pack once again to find a blanket. At least there was one, Schuldig hoped that that meant that Crawford was prepared for this, somehow. That somehow he'd figured it was necessary to take the explosion. He spread the blanket on Crawford's immobile body and tested the precog's skin. Ah, so cold. He needed to warm Crawford up. Schuldig slipped in under the blanket and snuggled up as close as possible. He wrapped his arms around the cold body. He listened to Crawford's breathing. It came fast, short. It occurred to him that Crawford might have lost too much blood after all. Here, in the wilderness, there were no transfusions available.

And where iwas/i "here", anyway? Schuldig took a good look around. He knew which way to the place where they had boarded the yacht; all you needed to do was to follow the creek upriver. But he wasn't sure how far they were from where they had left the car. He hadn't really been paying attention. Crawford knew the way and had only checked the map a few times.

The map.

The map! Schuldig grabbed the remnants of Crawford's coat and searched through the pockets. He grinned when he felt a piece of paper in one pocket. He picked it out ― and the smile fell off his lips. What was left of the map was a soaked, torn mess. He checked the coat again. Half of the pocket was missing.

"Beautiful," he muttered. Carefully, he unfolded and smoothed the map out on the dirt to see how much of it was still intact. He could make out the road they had taken, but there was nothing left to indicate the location of the road in relation to the river. Frustrated, he left the map where it was and looked at Crawford. "You better survive," he said. "Otherwise I'll never find my way out of here."

There was no response. How long had he been out? Schuldig ran his fingers along the side of Crawford's face, pushing a little into his mind. i» Crawford? »/i He met nothing, not even the faint flicker of a sleeping mind. There was just a vague echo of a presence, and a faint one, at that.

If Crawford was going to die, what was Schuldig going to do? He stared at the sky where light was slowly changing residence down toward the horizon. How big was this damned forest, anyway? Would he have to hunt and gather his food until he found settlements? Sleep under the trees and take his directions from the stars? He was unable to call for help. He hadn't brought his cell phone ― damned stupid in retrospect, but as a telepath, he simply kept forgetting. He wasn't crazy about that particular piece of equipment, anyway ― it kept making his head hurt ― and besides, he didn't need one to contact Crawford from a distance so long as Crawford didn't wander out of his range. Crawford's phone was apparently gone along with his backpack. Eh. Schuldig was effectively stranded. Would Eszett send for him eventually?

Of course, it would take even longer to reach the city if he had to drag Crawford with him. Schuldig dug his chin into Crawford's shoulder and frowned at the precog, who wasn't so smart after all, was he? "It's all your fault, really," he said.

The only answer was the crackling of the fire, and that was probably for the best.

Schuldig's eyes lingered on the silent lines of Crawford's face. Should he be worried? Was this a planned thing? He thought back on what had happened on the yacht. They'd worked perfectly together, as always, covering for one another in the firefight. They hadn't been near one another when the explosion happened, because Crawford had told him to go to the left. That had taken Schuldig far from the centre of the explosion ― far from Crawford, who had taken down another opponent Schuldig couldn't get to from his angle.

Schuldig frowned. Crawford could've stood somewhere else to take that shot, right?

...right?

The telepath didn't linger in the thought. Crawford would tell him exactly what the fuck was going on once he'd wake up.

Schuldig stayed with Crawford until the pallid skin felt a little warmer under his touch. Then he slipped away from under the blanket and crawled over to where he had left the backpack and the rest of their things. Schuldig continued to inspect the contents of the backpack. He needed an inventory of what they had left. There wasn't any food. Well, Crawford had probably assumed that they wouldn't need any. In fact there didn't seem to be much anything of use aside from water. It looked suspiciously like Crawford had assumed they would be just taking a little hike through the woods. Listen to the birds chirping, like they were on a fucking vacation.

Fuck.

The weapons were his next concern. Schuldig picked up his gun and examined it. The surface was mostly dry by now, but it was probably wet from the inside. The longer it'd wait, the more likely that it would be ruined. He sat cross-legged next to Crawford and ran his fingers along the superb sleek surface of the gun.

"Oh, baby, I'm sorry," he murmured. "I'll make this all up to you later, I promise." Then he started to take the gun apart to clean and dry it. Once done, he laid the pieces on the ground near the fire to dry. He was in the process of repeating the procedure to Crawford's gun, when he heard a voice.

"When I said you could fuck me later, I didn't mean you could take off my pants as soon as you got me bandaged." Crawford's voice sounded sleepy.

Schuldig turned. Crawford's eyes were half open, staring at the ground. The telepath didn't bother answering the jab. "Oh, welcome back to the land of the living. I've done all the work while you were away." His voice shifting a little toward concern, he examined Crawford's expressionless face. "How do you feel?"

Crawford didn't move to even look at him. "I'll survive."

"Well, thank fuck," Schuldig said. "You know I haven't the faintest of how to find the car. So, just in case you pass out again, tell me which way to the car."

"Tell me which way south," Crawford replied. Schuldig figured the blood loss was messing with his sense of direction.

"That way." He pointed, but Crawford didn't look up to see. There was a silence, longer than Schuldig had patience for. He turned back to the gun he had been cleaning.

"I can't see, Schuldig," Crawford said finally.

Schuldig didn't understand at first. He frowned. "Well, obviously not if you stare at the ground." It was such an apparent answer, he couldn't believe Crawford needed instruction.

"No, I meant..." Crawford looked up, but there was something empty in the way he stared into Schuldig's general direction, his gaze never focusing, never finding the telepath's eyes. "I think I'm blind."

"What?" Schuldig asked stupidly. "But there's not a mark on your face." Even Crawford's glasses had ― amazingly enough ― survived the explosion and the dive into the water intact.

Crawford's lips tightened. "Take my word for it," he said tersely. "I can't see a thing."

Schuldig dropped the gun into his lap and leaned his weight on one hand, turning to stare at Crawford. "Shit." He felt like there was maybe more he should have said, but his mind was blank. The words blind and Crawford were two so separate concepts that they were completely impossible to merge.

Schuldig sat in a sea of emotion where he couldn't tell whose heart he was listening to. He heard the ripples of anger, discomfort... pale fear. That one, he was pretty sure, was not his own.

"You think it's permanent?" he asked, examining Crawford's unmoving, staring eyes. They looked like the eyes of the dead.

"How am I supposed to know?" Crawford's voice came out harsh, acid. "It's fucking cold here, you should build a fire."

Eh. A swearing, irritable, snippy Crawford would have been entertainment under different circumstances. Right now, Schuldig was tired and confused and not at all feeling like getting snapped at. Especially when the apparent implied reprimand was completely undeserved.

"I've done that already," Schuldig said impatiently. He leaned over and grabbed Crawford's hand. He pulled it closer to the fire. Crawford started a little from surprise when he felt the sharp sting of heat.

"Shit," Crawford said and pulled back his hand. Schuldig was startled this time. He didn't often hear Crawford swearing like that. In fact it was years now since he remembered hearing anything so vulgar from him. Crawford's hand was shaking as he pressed it down on the dirt. "Why aren't you over here warming me up?"

"I had to take care of our weapons," Schuldig said. He didn't like Crawford's tone. He didn't like anything about Crawford right now, because it didn't feel like Crawford. And he didn't like the fact that Crawford was behaving as all this was a surprise to him. "We might need them. And I think you should say please."

"What?" Crawford croaked.

"I think you should ask more nicely for me to warm you up," Schuldig went on, pushing the matter. "I've worked my ass off getting you cleaned and bandaged and building you a fire and lying there warming you up and I think you should say please now. Or maybe say thank you, that would work too. Yes, I think that has a nice ring to it. 'Thank you, Schuldig, for saving my life.' That's what you should be saying right now."

"Do you want to know which way to the car or not?" Crawford's voice was unkind.

Schuldig rolled his eyes. It was useless, trying to get gratitude out of the precognitive. "Fine. I save your life, you take me out of here. It's a deal."

Crawford ignored the sarcasm. "So, which way south?"

Schuldig could feel the tightened wire that was Crawford's mind. Much as he felt tempted to continue bickering, ah, well... Somewhere in there, he sensed that this was not a moment to test Crawford's patience. He patted an extremity of his partner's body to indicate the direction.

"Then the car is over there," Crawford pointed.

Schuldig glanced suspiciously toward the horizon. "Are you sure?"

"Yes. Now come over here and warm me up."

Such tension...

It occurred to Schuldig that Crawford was trembling. He just didn't sound right. Nothing about him sounded right or felt right. Schuldig couldn't have missed that knot that was Crawford's mind even if he'd have tried his utmost to keep his talent to himself. And right now, he wasn't trying especially hard. Crawford didn't feel normal. The precog was so busy trying to hold it all inside that he ended up tearing at the web that held his mind together. Crawford felt ― ah, Schuldig sensed everything that was Crawford curling inwards until it rolled outwards. He was a jar that was too full: crushing the lid shut caused the contents to spill. Ah, no, Crawford was like a book with a broken spine, shaken, some of the pages about to come loose.

In a word, he tasted... vulnerable. Surfaced. Bare.

Oh, the temptation.

"I wouldn't need to, you know," Schuldig said. It was just another way of saying that he'd have deserved the thanks, and just maybe he'd have deserved the please, too.

Crawford closed his eyes and turned his head a little. He probably wanted to hide his expression, but he couldn't hide his feelings, not right now. Schuldig felt the pain; it had Crawford all over it. It was the pain of a one-legged man crawling up the stairs because he'd lost his walking stick. It was the pain of a Crawford who needed something from Schuldig. The pain of a vulnerable Crawford. Schuldig examined his partner's face that was half hidden in shadows. Lines tightened Crawford's expression. Had it been anyone else, Schuldig would have used that vulnerability. But the pain was too real, too deep, too raw, and it was Crawford. Respect made the telepath withdraw and keep his talent in check.

Schuldig moved closer and slipped in under the blanket without another word. Crawford put his arm around Schuldig's body and pulled it close. He rested his bandaged head against the telepath's neck under the chin. It might have been an embrace but it didn't feel like one. Crawford was cold all over again, but maybe colder from the inside than out. His pain bled into Schuldig's mind slowly, like his soul was leaking.

That made Schuldig feel something, he wasn't sure what. He rather not linger in those feelings to figure them out.

Crawford fell asleep again ― leaving Schuldig alone to contemplate the idea of a blind Crawford.


	2. Some Kind of Surrender

**Chapter Two**  
**:: Some Kind of Surrender::**

By morning, Schuldig was so tired that he didn't want to get up from the ground. He had stayed up all night to keep an eye on the fire and on Crawford. He had woken the precognitive up every few hours to check up on his condition. He'd been vomited on once, which answered the question of how Crawford was feeling that time.

When sunlight touched the treetops in the distance, Schuldig squeezed Crawford's shoulder. "Wake up, sunshine."

Crawford shifted and made a sound. It took a second squeeze on the shoulder to rouse him fully. The brown eyes opened, but they still had no expression. Schuldig held back the sigh. Still no change. He had hoped that maybe, just maybe Crawford would eventually wake up and tell him it was fine, he could see again.

"How do you feel?" Schuldig was beginning to feel like a broken record, because he had been doing this all night ― woken Crawford up, asked that question, let him fall asleep and then do it all over again in a few hours. This time, he broke the pattern by adding an involuntary yawn.

"Did you sleep at all?"

Schuldig gave a sleepy, pleased smile. "Aw, Crawford, are you worried about me?"

"I'm worried about the both of us. I can't see and you're sleeping standing up, it doesn't promise a smooth trip up through the woods."

Schuldig frowned. "Since when did we decide to take a trip through the woods? You're not in any condition to go anywhere."

"I need to get to a hospital."

Schuldig tested the surface levels of Crawford's mind and found them more composed now, more like Crawford. That didn't change the fact that he was seriously injured. "No shit," Schuldig shook his head, "but you're not in any condition to be moved."

"Let me worry about that."

"Why? Because you've had this entire trip so well planned so far?" This had to be the worst planned mission, well, ever. "Why didn't you get us a helicopter, anyway?"

"Look around you. There's nowhere to land here." Crawford sounded sensible, as always. Schuldig stared at him for a moment. It was still hard for him to believe that this was real. That all that blood was real. That Crawford had let him down.

"All this had better not turn out to be some kind of a joke," he said. He got up and walked over to the bushes where he had left their clothes. "Looks like these are dry," he said, just to change the topic. He picked up Crawford's trousers and brought them over. "Here, you might tear yourself up all over again trying to get dressed by yourself. Luckily I'd be more than happy to help you out." He grinned wide.

"I'm not completely helpless yet," Crawford said moodily.

Schuldig rolled his eyes. "Did you lose your sense of humour along with your eyesight?"

He felt it that time. Crawford said nothing, but he didn't need to. Everything was there, on the surface again. Schuldig had hit a nerve.

For the second time, the telepath retreated. He poked no further.

"Well." Schuldig knelt next to Crawford. "You may not be helpless, but there's no point being dumb just to prove you're a big boy."

Crawford said nothing at all. Schuldig took that for a permission. He grabbed the trousers and lifted one of Crawford's feet. It was a powerful thing, much more so than his clothes let on. Though Schuldig had noticed. The fabric tended to cling onto this muscle... here... when Crawford moved. Schuldig easily imagined the rest of the foot, the shape of the thigh. Right now he didn't need to imagine. Crawford's thigh was right there, his knee was touching it. Right there. He realised that there were smudges on Crawford's skin. Blood. He felt tempted to put his hand on it, make the smudge rather a trail, to spread it up, up, closer to...

"I almost forgot about that," Crawford murmured.

Schuldig's eyes wouldn't move from the stain. "Forgot about what?" he whispered. The precognitive didn't make any sense, but that was okay, he always started from the future and worked his way back to the present eventually.

"You. Blood. That." Crawford drew in a slightly rasping breath. The sound woke Schuldig from his thoughts and snapped the telepath's attention back to Crawford's pale face.

Schuldig would have liked to tell him that he wasn't as unprofessional as to get distracted by _that_ sort of thing in the middle of everything, but it simply wasn't true. He tore his eyes off his partner's face and worked the trouser leg into a position where he could get Crawford's foot into it. Awkwardly, Schuldig worked both of Crawford's feet into the trousers. His eyes landed on that part of Crawford that was usually his mark when he was in this position, on his knees, his hands plastered on Crawford's thighs.

All jokes died on his lips because it occurred to him that he might have had his last taste of Crawford, blood and _that_.

Crawford grabbed his wrists and pulled his hands away. "I'll do the rest."

Schuldig glanced up from under his brows. He saw the tight lines of Crawford's face. Heard the tight lines of his mind. They all said, "no". No.

"Are you sure?" Schuldig poked at Crawford's mind with his talent like snapping his fingers in a concert hall to check for acoustics.

Crawford slammed up a mental barrier in his face like a slap. He was sure.

Schuldig didn't question it further. He stood up and turned away. He was happy, just then, that Crawford couldn't see his face. Instead of fetching his own clothes, Schuldig walked to the river. He waded into the water, ankle-deep at first, bristling at the cold that embraced his feet.

"What are you doing?" Crawford was slowly getting his trousers on the rest of the way. If you asked Schuldig, it would have looked more dignified if he had accepted help.

"I'm going to catch us breakfast, because apparently, assuming you packed any food, you put it all in your pack, which is gone now," Schuldig said. If he was honest about it, he was doing this mostly because he just couldn't decide if Crawford was well enough to be moved. If he got them some breakfast, maybe that would keep Crawford put a little longer. He wiped his eyes with one hand to rub off the sleep and then tried to focus his eyes on the water. He thought he saw movement and waded in deeper.

Crawford finished getting his trousers on. "To your right."

"What?"

"You missed it." Crawford paused. "Left, now!"

This time Schuldig swung around according to instruction. He didn't miss it by much, he could feel the violent twist of the slippery body in his hands before it slipped away. He let out a curse.

"You need to be faster," Crawford noted.

"No, _you_ need to be faster and more precise," Schuldig said, shaking water off his hands and scanning the surface of the water again. "I need time to react."

There was a pause, longer this time, then, _» Ten o'clock! »_ the thought came faster than any words could, and Schuldig was in motion as if it was his own. It was a familiar exercise, almost instinct, after all these years. The fish might as well have been an enemy Schuldig was about to drop, or a bullet he needed to dodge. A splash later he was yelling gleefully and holding up a shining, shimmering creature in the sunlight on top of his head. He was laughing as he turned around and waved the fish over his head to show it to Crawford ― only to realise that Crawford couldn't see it. There was that ugly word again ― blind. Smile fell off his lips and he lowered his arms.

"I caught it," he said as he started back toward the fire.

"Oh," Crawford was smiling, just barely, "based on the noise, for a moment I thought it caught you."

Schuldig smacked the fish against a rock to crush its head. He didn't know what to say. Banter didn't work the same when Crawford couldn't see him, and time was clearly not ripe for jokes about the matter itself. He wasn't sure if time would ever be ripe. If Crawford wouldn't get his vision back ― what would become of him? Would Eszett have use for a blind oracle?

"So, I guess your... sight still works," Schuldig said. He fetched his stiletto from the pack. He glanced at Crawford who was silent and serious again. "You know... the... premonitions and shit. You still see, right?" There was a pause. Schuldig's easy certainty turned into creeping doubt. "Right?"

Crawford sighed. "Yes, Schuldig." His eyes wandered without focus. "But it's different."

"How?"

"I mean... the details are different." Crawford looked thoughtful. "I... knew where the fish was, rather than saw it. But I did see it."

Schuldig shook his head. "That doesn't make any sense, you realise." But that was all right. Crawford rarely made sense when he talked about his visions. Yeah. It was okay, it wasn't the concussion talking. Or whatever it was that was wrong with Crawford. Schuldig had to admit that Crawford was probably right. He needed to get checked out by a medical expert. What bothered him most was the blindness. It didn't match with anything he'd heard of before. Random blindness without a scratch on his face... how was that even possible? And what of those shards ― he wasn't sure if he had managed to remove them all. How could he be sure? He wasn't an appropriate type of a kinetic who could tell. All he could tell of Crawford's physical state was that there was a lot of _pain_.

Schuldig sank the blade into the fish and cut off the head. Then he scratched the side of his head thoughtfully with the hilt of the knife, wondering what else he should do. He had never gutted a fish before. Well. Wasn't that hilarious, when you thought about it. What did they think an operative was supposed do in this type of situation? Eat the fish raw like some animal? Ew.

"You're going to do it wrong," Crawford noted.

"What?"

"The fish. You're about to do it wrong."

Schuldig couldn't believe it. "Oh, right, and I suppose you know all about gutting fish, do you?" he asked sarcastically.

"More than you, apparently." Crawford closed his eyes. "You need to cut open the belly and take out the guts." A ghost of a smile floated on his lips again. "That's all the disgusting stuff."

"It's a fish, Crawford. Everything about it looks pretty disgusting to me." But Schuldig was used to following Crawford's instructions. After some further specifications from Crawford, he found the parts he was supposed to remove. It wasn't really that hard. He would have liked to remove the bones, too, but that sounded unnecessarily complicated. Schuldig went to get his trousers before putting a stick through the fish and propping up a few other sticks to hang it on top of the fire.

He sat and stared at the fish, feeling rather pleased with himself. He hadn't only rescued Crawford and built a fire, he had now gutted his first fish. It was something small indeed, but the symbolism was there. Survival of the fittest. He was beginning to see the appeal of this wilderness thing. It was all about survival, and that was Schuldig's favourite game to play.

Though the honest part of him reminded him that he had had help, with the fish. He glanced at Crawford, who was lying with his eyes closed on the ground.

"So, how did you learn about gutting fish, anyway?" he asked. He was honestly curious. Maybe Crawford had taken one course more than he had. Survival course for the Bookish? The thought had him smiling. At any rate, he was unable to imagine the always well-dressed, indoors Crawford knee-deep in riverbank mud, gutting fish. Voluntarily, anyway.

"My father took me out fishing sometimes."

Schuldig raised a brow. "No shit." He tried to picture a child Crawford with his daddy out fishing together. "How sweet."

"Not really." Crawford held his thoughts like a suspended breath, and Schuldig couldn't quite grasp them. "Father took me to the creek and left me with the keeper while he went back to the lodge, to drink and screw the maids."

Schuldig chuckled. That was much easier to picture. "I'm beginning to see how you turned out the way you did."

But underneath the jokes, there was another layer. Schuldig's eyes lingered on Crawford. The precog didn't often discuss his past. He'd made a point of _not_ telling Schuldig anything about it on more than one occasion. Why now? There was a lot of information in those simple sentences. Crawford's father had been wealthy or at least well-to-do. They'd owned or rented a lodge in the mountains near a river. Yes... Schuldig remembered a vision from a long, long time ago. From a past better off forgotten. A river and mountains ― ah, and a boy of... how old? Schuldig wasn't sure.

"Was it that place?" Schuldig asked more quietly. "That place, on the mountains, with the river, the one you showed me, back when..."

Crawford cut him off, corrected his statement, "The one you stole from my mind."

Eh. Well. Schuldig's gaze wandered back to the fish. He wanted to ask more questions, but Crawford's silence didn't invite anything further. Crawford hadn't really answered the question. Schuldig didn't need to be a precognitive to know that he wasn't about to. And he didn't need to use his talent to figure out that Crawford had already indirectly answered. There had been something special about that place.

One of these days, he'd find out what that was. Maybe then he'd figure out why Crawford chose to divulge that bit of information now, of all moments.

Schuldig's thoughts lingered in a child Crawford who had been something he had never known. His mind rotated toward the question that always disturbed him. What would it have been like to have a past you knew for sure was your own?

There was another silence. The fish kept Schuldig's attention but not his thoughts. Schuldig contemplated Crawford's suggestion that they head out for the city soon. The sooner he could get Crawford some medical attention, the better. But was it safe to move him? Was Crawford thinking straight? Could he trust Crawford's judgement right now?

All this thinking was making his head hurt. He wanted to trust Crawford's judgement. Head injuries were tricky. If he got Crawford to a doctor, maybe they would know why he was blind though there was apparently nothing wrong with his eyes. Maybe they knew how to fix it.

Maybe. Schuldig lingered in that thought.

If they didn't... what would become of them both? Crawford wouldn't be able to lead a field team anymore. Schuldig expected to be reassigned to another team, with another leader. That thought made him uneasy. He didn't want another team or another leader. He didn't want to go through the motions with someone new, but most importantly he didn't want to lose this place he had with Crawford. This was a good place, he was used to this, here he was as close to paradise as someone like him could imagine being. He had no need of yesterdays, plenty of today and a promise of tomorrow. Here and now was good, here was perfect. Without Crawford, he would be alone with his mind, like before Crawford, when there had been too much of the now, but not enough of tomorrow.

Crawford was right, they should get out of here, get Crawford into a hospital. "Why haven't they picked us up yet?" Schuldig asked. He didn't need to say the name Eszett. "They must have seen something, right?"

Crawford made a motion that looked like a shrug. "Maybe they haven't. Or maybe they don't care."

"Don't care. Right." The thought had honestly not crossed his mind. "Why not?"

"Think about it. They know you're going to make it back into the city eventually. If they think I'm already gone, they have no reason to use their resources to help me."

Schuldig didn't want to accept that suggestion. "You said you were going to survive," he said.

"You know as well as I do that just surviving isn't enough for them."

The telepath had no other answer than the one he didn't want to say out loud. Schuldig picked up the fish to take a bite. It didn't taste good, but it would have to do. "Here," he grabbed Crawford's hand and placed the stick into it. "Eat some. You need to get your strength back. And don't complain about the taste, or I'll make you cook the next one."

"I seriously hope there will be no need for a next one."

Schuldig watched him turn and get up on one elbow. It looked awfully difficult. The strain wasn't doing him any favours. Schuldig moved in closer. Crawford tensed for a moment, but relaxed soon, allowing Schuldig to prop him up. Once he had got Crawford comfortably into his arms, Schuldig took the fish and held it in front of Crawford's mouth. He could sense the smug smile.

"Don't get used to this," Schuldig said. "I'm only helping you so you can conserve your energy, because I'm not going to to carry you through the woods all the way to the car."

Crawford fell silent. It was meant as a joke, but it brought up whole other feelings and thoughts. Schuldig probably hadn't meant to remind Crawford of just how much help he'd need getting to the car. The telepath was accidental that way. Accidental all over. He kept being an accident in Crawford's carefully laid out plans. He was an accident that had become a plan. Ah. Schuldig was always the surprise, the one constant variable that kept _happening_ in his plans. But there were some things Crawford knew. Like the fact that Schuldig was going to be right there with him, supporting him, helping him walk through the woods. Schuldig would curse through it all, he'd cling onto Crawford's body and tell him he'd better walk, damn it. He'd say it in emphatic German and he'd curse some more. He'd refuse to leave Crawford behind.

Crawford studied his visions like a religious man studies the Bible to find the loophole that will let him indulge in sin ― he ran them over and over again through his mind like videotape looking for that loophole. He couldn't afford mistakes now. He couldn't afford a misinterpretation. He had to get this right. He felt damaged, not the least because of the splintering headache, so he had to make sure. Over and over again.

No matter how many times he looked, he got the same answer. The future was bleeding out of him like life bled from his wounds, trickling, slowly, slowly. He suspected something was wrong, inside him, somewhere. Crawford's hazy visions and the lack of the ones he most desperately wanted to see tormented him, it all tore up a fresh wound, or perhaps tore open an old scar. Hints of the wrong kind of a future threatened to shred a promise and a purpose that now, may never be his after all.

The only certainty he had now, the only constant, was Schuldig.

Crawford knew that Schuldig didn't expect him to think anything of the amount of effort the telepath put to tending to him. They were partners. Furthermore, Schuldig was obliged to tend to him, because Crawford was his leader. It should have been all business. But Crawford knew that it wasn't. He was a need, a comfort zone, for Schuldig, he was a place in which Schuldig belonged and wanted to belong. It had taken careful control of all the variables, but Crawford had succeeded in forging the kind of partnership he needed. His plan had been to make sure that it was just a little more than business for the telepath.

...but...

For what purpose? For what future? Crawford had thought he had known, but now he couldn't see it any more. He had always taken his certainty of a purpose for an instinct, because he had been convinced that he could shape his future to what he wanted it to be. Schuldig had become accidentally a part of all that. Now nothing about this was accidental, except maybe the fact that Crawford suddenly wondered what it had all been worth.

Maybe, just possibly, it had all been just for this moment. It was a bitter thought. In these woods, he needed to trust Schuldig. He needed to put himself in Schuldig's hands completely. It should have been all business, but it wasn't. The man who owned the future had let all certainty slip through his hands. He needed to trust his accidental plan.

Crawford wanted to regain control. He wanted to ascertain that he did, did own this moment, because he had created this thing between them. He had built it. He knew what he was doing. He was in control of this accident. He needed to prove it.

He wanted to hear Schuldig say it.

To that end, Crawford whispered, "You could just leave me here."

"Yes, but then I'd have gone through all this trouble for nothing," Schuldig retorted and took a bite of the fish for himself.

Crawford's eyes wandered because he wanted to see. He wanted to see Schuldig ― his accident and his plan. "You didn't need to go through the trouble in the first place."

Schuldig lowered the fish again near Crawford's face. He couldn't figure out the angle Crawford was going for. "I've been up all night, Crawford," he said a bit more irritably. "I don't want to play. If there's something you want to ask me, just ask."

Crawford didn't answer right away. Wait for it. Wait for it... Schuldig let him chew down a few bites before taking a chunk of fish for himself again. That was the moment Crawford chose for speaking ― for setting the bait.

"Did you do it for me, or for you?"

The fish got caught in Schuldig's throat halfway down. After some amount of coughing and gagging, he managed to get the fish to continue in the direction it was supposed to be going. In mild confusion, he looked down at the man lying in his arms. It should have been a meaningless question ― one which asked nothing because the answer was supposed to be obvious. He had done it for himself. And Crawford shouldn't be asking, because he knew it too. Neither of them ever did anything, if it wasn't for themselves. But to say that felt like a lie, and with Crawford, he had no desire or reason to lie. It was unnecessary in their relationship. Whatever he had to hide about himself he simply never said out loud. The rest was the truth.

Schuldig gave it some thought. What was the truth, then? His eyes lingered on Crawford's face. Maybe those lines were a little tense. Maybe that mind was a little expectant. Maybe Crawford really, really wanted his answer. That took Schuldig back, to other times when Crawford had really, really wanted something from him. This approach was more direct, less planned, more transparent. Less like Crawford. Must have been the concussion talking. Schuldig should have worried, but he was lost in contemplation of this thing between them that he didn't know how to name. His mind went even further back, leaped through time farther and farther. What was the truth? What was the honest answer? When had it changed between them? Had it changed?

Ah. It was simple, really. He just wasn't sure.

When he realised this truth and decided not to hide it, it came out easy, too. "I don't know," he said, fascinated by the fact. He just knew that he wouldn't leave Crawford here. It was automatic. It was an exchange. A kind of mutual need. In the end, maybe the easiest way to say it was, "I guess I did it for the both of us."

They shared a silence, in which just a little more than silence was shared. Crawford let Schuldig's answer rest in his mind. His gift was precognition, but occasionally, it was more than looking forward ― sometimes, he could look backward and forward, both ways at once. It was like standing in between yesterday and tomorrow. Right now, his mind was, for a moment, filled with all of the yesterdays he had shared with Schuldig.

Schuldig couldn't have missed the understanding that met his answer ― he almost lost himself in the acceptance and the warmth. Then came the words Schuldig had never heard before, or perhaps it was closer to the truth to say that he hadn't heard these intentions in those words, these feelings and these meanings, which he now sensed in the open thought that Crawford offered to him like the palm of his hand to a fortune-teller. The thought consisted of three simple words that would have been an everyday thing to anyone else, but to Schuldig, from Crawford, they meant some kind of a surrender, for no other reason than because they meant _something_.

"Thank you, Schuldig."

Schuldig smiled. Never before had it bothered him more that Crawford couldn't see his face. He offered the smile to Crawford through his thoughts instead, leaving it there on the doorstep of Crawford's mind like a gift waiting to be picked up.

There, there was that shape Crawford had wanted - the genuine smile. The only genuine thing in Crawford's life. Who would have known? Who would have known it would be this telepath? He groped for the proof of that accident that had changed his plans all those years ago completely. It was all in there, in that familiar shape he knew hovered above him. He had conjured that smile out of pleasure and heat many times during endless silent nights, in the insatiable hunger of two minds and bodies that connected so deep that he sometimes almost thought he wouldn't mind losing his soul. The danger was always worth it when he saw that smile, because it assured him that he was in control. That smile promised him that Schuldig was his. He wanted to see it now desperately. He wanted to see it, he wanted to *see* it, in every way. In that feverish moment he wanted to see in detail what it was that he had created.

But no, no ― He. Just. Couldn't. See.

Hungrily, he lifted his hands to trace the smile with his fingers, grasping for some physical sensation to record this with. Crawford's hands took in what his eyes could not.

Hands. It just wasn't the same.


	3. A Taste of the Sky

**Chapter Three  
:: A Taste of the Sky ::**

Crawford lay on the ground on his side, his eyes wandering on his surroundings as though he was trying to catch a glimpse of a moving object. When he started talking, Schuldig knew he was thinking aloud.

"It was several hours' hike from the car to where we boarded the yacht." His fingers traced a line in the dirt. If it was supposed to be a map, Schuldig couldn't tell. "Since we travelled some ways downriver on the yacht, it adds a bit to the trek, but if we take a direct route through the forest instead of tracing our steps back along the river, we should make up for some of it. I won't be able to move very fast, so that'll slow us down. I figure we'll reach the car by evening, if nothing unexpected happens."

Schuldig shifted his shoulders uncomfortably. "Considering our luck so far, I wish there hadn't been an if in there."

Crawford didn't respond. The lack of a confident response unnerved Schuldig even more, and for a moment he wished the precognitive would simply have lied to him.

"So, how do we do this?" Schuldig's hand settled on Crawford's shoulder.

"What do you mean?"

"I can't carry you. How will you find your footing in the forest?" Schuldig asked. "I guide you through every step?"

Crawford considered it for a moment. "No," he decided.

"Then what?" Schuldig looked hopeful. "You're going to use your talent to predict your steps?"

"It doesn't work like that." Crawford held out his hand, missing Schuldig's general direction by a few inches. Not very encouraging. "Help me up."

Schuldig grabbed Crawford's hand and wrapped one arm around his waist to hoist him up on his feet. A nauseous expression passed over Crawford's face but he stood, leaning against Schuldig.

"This is never going to work," the telepath muttered when he had to put both his arms around Crawford to keep him from falling over. They'd move snail speed! He might send Crawford snapshots of their surroundings constantly, but in Crawford's current disoriented state Schuldig wasn't sure how often he'd need a new image. How much could he retain in his memory at once? And anyway... that kind of constant telepathic work for hours on end while dragging Crawford's stumbling heavy body through the woods, trying to find his own footing and keep them both standing... it sounded like a living hell. It would exhaust Schuldig completely and the more he'd push his limits, the more likely that he might make a mistake...

"Wait," Crawford whispered hoarsely. "Just wait."

"For what?" Schuldig couldn't believe they were doing this. Crawford was in no condition to move anywhere. They'd be lucky if they got through the first half a mile.

Crawford looked like he was concentrating, then he reached with his hand for Schuldig's face ― randomly, apparently, since his palm landed right in the middle. Schuldig let out an annoyed sound and turned his head, but Crawford's fingers were already moving like dancing spider's feet, running along every detail, every hollow and every rise until they settled on the side of Schuldig's face and held tight.

"Lock minds with me," Crawford said.

Schuldig was very still, his eyes wide, staring at the man in his arms. "Come again?" Crawford stood, his arm around Schuldig, his head resting on Schuldig's shoulder. And when Schuldig tested, he found Crawford's mind open. "Are you serious?"

Crawford nodded. "I want you to lock minds with me and share what you see."

Schuldig's mind was frozen somewhere between Crawford's offered mind and his own shock. "Do you realise what you're asking?" His voice was choked, like his thoughts.

"Probably not. But it's the only way." Crawford stood tense, but his thoughts didn't withdraw. They were there, so exposed that Schuldig could easily dip in and take what he wanted. It was like leaning over the edge of a pond and trying to decide if the waters below were warm or cold.

But... Schuldig's mind was swept into memories of dark chasms and hopeless places he never wanted to go back to. He wanted to tell Crawford that it was impossible. He wanted to suggest a bunch of other options. He could send Crawford instructions. Images. Anything. Crawford was wrong. It wasn't the only way.

It was the most effective, though. A mind lock was different from all other types of telepathic interaction. Once formed, the link would feed itself. It was horribly effective.

Horribly, indeed.

It could cost him his identity all over again.

He wanted to argue. Firmly say "no". No. But... Crawford claimed that it was the only way. Crawford would never suggest it if he wasn't convinced of that fact. Right? Schuldig's mouth wouldn't open for refusal right away, but neither did he open up his talent in order to agree to the plan.

"I've only done it a few times," Schuldig whispered, frozen in shock and fear. "I hated it every time." The memories tried to surface but he closed his eyes and his mind against them. They came from a place he didn't want to think about, a time he rather forgot had ever existed. And he didn't understand, anyway: "How do you even know about it?"

It was Crawford's turn to steel his mind against the memory that tried to surface. He kept his mind open, ready for Schuldig. Ready for what he knew he needed to do. He had made no mistake in interpreting his visions. Crawford was ready for this ― he was strong enough for this. Schuldig was different from... Crawford refused the memory again. He pressed his fingertips tighter against the side of Schuldig's face. Schuldig's answer had ascertained that he was different. _I guess I did it for the both of us._ It was different between the two of them. Just like Crawford had intended.

So he gave an answer, quietly, with a choked voice, fighting to keep his thoughts in order, to keep his feelings in check, to keep it all open and ready for his telepath. _His_ telepath. His very own. He whispered, "Do you really think they would have given me a telepath if I didn't know what I could do with it?"

It was a statement, not a question. The only question he asked was whether Schuldig could piece together the real meaning of it. Schuldig's eyes stared somewhere over Crawford's shoulder. It made sense. Of course it made sense that Crawford would know. He had always known there was an abundance of information that had been given to his leader but not to him. If precognitives were good for one thing, that was for knowing, understanding clues, understanding all the options. They were raised differently, they were taught about the delicate web of cause and consequence, while telepaths were forged like tools, to be instruments, for people like Crawford.

"It works both ways, you know." Schuldig's mind was around Crawford's, circling, undecided, tempted and terrified all at once. "I share with you, you share with me."

Crawford felt the light touches of the telepath's mind around his own, flirting, licking the edges of his consciousness. He knew Schuldig wanted this, wanted it more than the telepath maybe dared to admit. The hesitation only served to strengthen Crawford's own resolve. It was different for Schuldig and him. Different, because Schuldig would respect his boundaries.

"But only to a point," he said softly.

"It's a deep point," Schuldig argued, amazed that Crawford wasn't bolting. He tested the precog's resolve further, "And I could always push all the way, once I'm in."

"I know." Crawford's voice had no tone, but his mind was like an open wound on sore skin. He knew. He knew better than well.

Schuldig didn't know what to say. He didn't know what it was supposed to mean. If Crawford's thanks earlier had been a symbol of something, this was a sign post. Trust was all over that answer. It was more than some vaguely defined certainty that they worked as partners. Shocked to the point of breathlessness, the telepath asked, "You'd still do it?"

"Like I said, it's the only way." Crawford grabbed the back of Schuldig's head with one hand, the other remained on the side of the telepath's face. He raised his head up, to press his his forehead against Schuldig's. The energy between them shuddered and so did Crawford. He was trembling, but not for cold or for fatigue. "We're wasting time," Crawford said.

Their breaths were becoming one. Schuldig's senses were full of Crawford. He forgot what time was.

"Lock minds with me. Do it."

Schuldig's arms held tighter onto his partner's body, his breath came out in short, rushed gasps. Crawford's thoughts were there so close that Schuldig's mind couldn't help grazing the ripples of the pond that was the other man's mind.

"Do it," Crawford repeated.

Schuldig wasn't sure why he was resisting it, if not for the memory that haunted the fears he had nearly forgotten but never really let go. But then Crawford's lips were on his and he lost his tongue into the other man's mouth. Soon after, he lost his thoughts, because Crawford whispered again, "Do it," and desire triumphed over fear. Everything he had carefully built for his protection fell away and there were just two naked minds against each other. The telepath struggled for a metaphor but symbols lost their meaning when all that was left was two dark places, endlessly reflecting off one another.

"You're fighting it." Schuldig was out of breath, his eyes closed tight, his mouth apart from Crawford's only as much as their minds were apart from one another, half a breath, but the crack was there, and he couldn't bridge it.

_» I don't mean to. »_

This time, Schuldig was the leader. _» Then don't. »_ He closed the distance between their lips again and pushed into the pond. He felt Crawford physically jolting, and the man was rigid again, but his mind remained bare and unprotected, and Schuldig's thoughts sank into it like a stone into water.

What he found from within was silence and cold and pain. The headache mingled into anxiety that was almost fear. Though Crawford didn't fight, it was like Schuldig was using a knife. It reminded him of his first time and of the broken mess he had been after, and he knew Crawford now remembered it too. But that was not what he wanted this to be like.

_» That's not what we are. »_ He pressed his lips tighter against Crawford's, feeling the touch and touching, both at once. _» We are this. »_

Their hands and lips on each other were a mockery of passion, but in their thoughts there was no mockery. There were warm bodies and pleasure and everything at the right time, in the right place.

Crawford fell from silence. Schuldig stiffened at what followed. It was barely more than a bunch of isolated details, a scrap of paper here and another there, notes tossed around carelessly, but the difference was that he could make out the pattern. It was like he was given the key to a code. He could suddenly understand how all the pieces of a puzzle fit together. And that yielded more and more details. It was different from any of his earlier attempts at understanding Crawford, different from any of his previous trips into that void of a mind, because he truly _was_ that void now. He was able to see the layers. They weren't stacked on top of one another, no, no, they were all just one, one single existence in space, and oh God, it was so vast ― there were even layers within layers!

Momentarily, Schuldig was all those layers. For just one breathless second, he thought he might understand them all, read them all, but then it all splintered.

He fell ― deep into nothing. Deep inside details he'd never before even paid attention to. It was all details inside Crawford. Missions, isolated incidents, movements and patterns that were all connected. He could see the framework of Crawford's world. No, he became the web that held it all together. He was shocked that he didn't find a mosaic of personal memories or thoughts. No, the surfaces of each layer remained clean and orderly.

He crashed into a construction of details that held no emotional baggage, details that had been built somewhere in between Rosenkreuz and now ― and the secrets weren't all Crawford's. Perhaps Schuldig only saw it all so clearly, because he had been there part of the way. It was easier to understand the connections. The picture was incomplete, but...

Schuldig pulled out of the kiss with a gasp, staring at the eyes that couldn't see his face. "This is forbidden," he whispered, in shock at what was unravelling in his mind. "It has to be."

Crawford didn't pull back, nor did he deny or confirm Schuldig's conclusion. He didn't need to. A telepath, especially a telepath like Schuldig wasn't supposed to know all those details. Maybe it was more than he'd intended to give, but...

"It's all right," Crawford whispered. His lips curved toward a smile. The smile widened when the sight of it spread from Schuldig's mind to his. "It works the way it's supposed to, and that's all that matters right now."

Schuldig examined Crawford's face. He wasn't sure what to think of the pleasure Crawford took from that exercise. "I guess we had better go," he said sarcastically, "before you fall in love with your own face."

* * *

Nothing was how it had used to be. Nothing was how it was supposed to be. Everything had changed here in the wilderness, when it was just the two of them and Crawford's mortality in Schuldig's mind.

Schuldig stared up at the sky. They had travelled a long time, probably longer than what was good for Crawford. By now Crawford's pain had been in Schuldig's head for so long that he'd got used to it. He had already lost track of whose weariness it was that he felt constantly weighing on his limbs. They hadn't reached the car by evening. Of course. Schuldig felt utterly spent. They both needed the rest, but Crawford was the only one who was able to sleep.

Stars brought no comfort to Schuldig. They looked mute and dead, but he felt the need to watch, because the sky was endless. He felt out of breath. He had been taught to keep carefully behind and within walls, to protect his own mind to keep a space for his own thoughts, to be able to function, as opposed to becoming nothing but an empty vessel with shifting emotions, affected by everyone around him, constantly. He had learned to keep a part to himself, but it hadn't come naturally. Ever since Crawford, it had been easier, no, well, Crawford had made it possible. By now, Crawford's silence, his compartmentalised mind, carefully controlled and calm, was like a second home.

But still these moments of complete solitude caused the unnatural walls to collapse on him, because they reflected nothing but his own mind, his own thoughts, his own feelings, and they closed in on him like a choking collar. As backwards as it was, the more open space there was around him, the more claustrophobic he felt.

He put his hands on Crawford's neck and tried his pulse. It was a gesture repeated so many times that he had lost count. It had become a compulsive motion, something he couldn't control. The heartbeat was there, but Schuldig started wondering if he was imagining it. He couldn't remember how long Crawford had slept. His skin was an ugly colour, a dead colour that made Schuldig nervous.

_» Come back, »_ he said. However long it was, it must have been long enough. Crawford didn't stir at first. He felt farther and farther away, like he was falling, letting go. Schuldig could feel it like a pair of hands in his mind. They had gripped tight at first, but now the hold was slipping. Crawford was starting to break.

_» I'm going to die here. »_ The thought bobbed on the surface of Crawford's mind. It was like a beacon, Schuldig zeroed in on it, absorbed it.

"No, you won't. Don't be such a drama queen. You're going to survive, remember? You said so."

Schuldig couldn't tell if either one of them believed it in there somewhere. He didn't care to push for it. Crawford had said he was going to survive, and he was damn well going to do just that, and he was going to get his eyesight back, and everything would be as it had been. As it was supposed to be.

Crawford didn't respond. His thoughts remained guarded beneath a layer of shadows. Schuldig felt tempted to push deeper, but that would have broken something. He'd already been allowed in deeper than he had a reason to expect Crawford to want him.

Suddenly, Crawford stiffened, and the next moment Schuldig experienced something he was wholly unprepared for. It was as though he was sucked into something and then imploded and exploded at the same time, as though he was outside himself and inside, and the feeling of displacement expanded into everything. He saw movement that went too fast for him to register any of it, and the next moment, it was all gone. Schuldig found himself gasping for air. His head was spinning.

"What the hell was that?"

Schuldig felt Crawford's tired amusement seeping through the mind link. _» You wouldn't make much of a precog. »_

"Is that what that was? A vision?" Schuldig's head was so full of Crawford's headache and their combined hurting muscles and bones that he didn't think there was anything funny about the smugness he could sense from Crawford. He fought to keep his insides where they belonged. "Is it always like that?"

"For the inexperienced precogs, sometimes. More or less." Crawford sounded so much like his usual matter-of-fact self that Schuldig felt like slapping him for lack of respect for his suffering.

"Shit," Schuldig muttered. Crawford's attention was barely there, in the present, offering nothing. Schuldig's focus moved out, to contemplate the experience itself, just to keep from throwing up. "It's funny, though. It was as if I was seeing it through my own eyes. Like... I was actually moving. Except, ten times faster than normal. Except I wasn't running. But everything was moving so fast. Is that how it works for you? You see everything from your own point of view?"

"It depends." But Crawford wouldn't say anything more on the topic.

Schuldig thought about the experience. "I didn't realise I could see your visions through the mind lock."

"Hmm." Crawford's layers tensed up like he prepared for a hit, but his words were calm and neutral, "It only makes sense, I suppose." Crawford didn't sound, he didn't _feel_ like he was happy about the idea. Schuldig caught the disturbed nausea but the next moment he wasn't sure which one of them was feeling it.

Schuldig focused on his own emotions. Curiosity. Yes. He was fascinated, even if Crawford wasn't.

"Do you suppose that our gifts might somehow work together? You know... merge?" Schuldig suggested.

"Maybe." This time Crawford's thoughts were clear: Crawford accepted the possibility, but he couldn't ― or perhaps _wouldn't_ ― imagine a precognitive Schuldig. "If that's the case," Crawford countered, "I should be able to use your gift too."

Schuldig could only pretend that the thought of a telepathic Crawford didn't bother him.

"I can't remember it though," he confessed. It had been like watching someone fast forwarding a video with superhuman speed. None of the details had stuck with him. All he remembered seeing was Crawford's face, and he couldn't even remember the expression. "It happened too fast. Is that normal?"

There was no answer, no explanation from the precognitive. Schuldig realised that Crawford was barely even there. The telepath was supporting Crawford's full weight again. Little by little, Schuldig let go of the disturbing experience and eased into the stillness of Crawford's tired mind. It was quiet there and, despite the pain, soothing. Crawford was nearly asleep.

Never one to keep his mind in one place for too long, Schuldig's attention wandered to the surrounding forest. All he could see were trees and bushes. Green everywhere. In the shelter of Crawford's presence, he started to smile.

"Ever think what it would be like to live like this?" he asked.

Crawford's mind was lingering somewhere between consciousness and sleep. "What," he murmured, "in constant pain?"

"No." Schuldig spread out one arm dramatically, as though he was about to embrace the scenery. "Like this, in the middle of nowhere. In nature."

"Too many bugs for my taste."

Schuldig rolled his eyes and let his arm drop. "You'd get used to the bugs." Crawford wasn't getting the point, anyway.

"I wouldn't bet on it." Crawford scratched the side of his face absently. Then Schuldig's thoughts finally seemed to poke at that part of the precognitive's mind that was still awake. Crawford cocked his head to one side. He was thinking about it. "You'd actually live like this?"

"Well..." Schuldig stared at all the green and the quiet. It wasn't his ideal retirement plan, no. His actual retirement plan involved beaches and lots of sunlight and beautiful bodies. But, he was struggling for an idea, "There's no other people here."

"I always thought you'd starve without people." Amusement flickered in Crawford's mind. "What, you want a cottage in the woods, couple of chicken and a garden patch?"

Crawford was misunderstanding him on purpose. His dismissal of the idea hurt a little. "I didn't mean it like that." Schuldig voiced his real thoughts. "There would be no Eszett. Just you and me..."

"...and a little house on the prairie. I guess that vision screwed with your head worse than I thought."

Crawford wore the banter like a disguise, but Schuldig found that underneath the mockery, there was a serious surface, where the suggestion of "no Eszett" settled and took hold. They were both equally captivated by the idea. Their desire for freedom was what had brought them together all those years ago. Their entire lives had become a delicate web of cause and consequence, balancing between control and chaos. They kept pushing the boundaries, well ― Schuldig did. He wasn't always so certain of Crawford.

He hadn't been certain, rather. Schuldig was certain now, though, because Crawford's mind was elaborating what he had never fully voiced. Schuldig sensed Crawford's desire echoing off his own. It fed the telepath's hunger. Freedom. Crawford wanted it too. From somewhere in the distance, an old, old concept floated into Schuldig's consciousness. Maybe it had become a compulsion to replace other compulsions, he wasn't sure.

_...together..._

Together. Without Eszett. Neither one of them had ever before dared to breathe that thought into existence, but now they quickly became completely hypnotized by it. It tangled around their minds like a steel wire to choke them.

Choke them, because reality crept up Schuldig's spine. "Crawford... what will they do to you?"

"Whatever it is," Crawford's thoughts were quieter, deeper inside, withdrawn, "I don't think it involves a cottage in the woods."

"It might, though." Schuldig stared at the trees. He knew it was ridiculous, but he didn't really want to admit to the truth. "They might lock you up somewhere nice, to milk you for visions."

But of course they both knew how naïve that suggestion was.

"They might lock me up, but I don't think it'd be anywhere nice."

Thoughts of cold beds and dark rooms and soundless screams surfaced and Schuldig knew that Crawford had seen it for himself. There was a set of eyes dead and empty and staring, staring... a shudder went through the telepath's body before he realised that the chill wasn't his own.

Crawford was shivering and his mind was suddenly falling, falling, falling. _» Schuldig... »_ His thoughts were hanging deeper in the darkness. _» ...Schuldig... »_ There was something almost gentle in the way Crawford's hazy mind extrapolated on his name, consequence measured purpose and gave his name a significance of aspiration, predilection, thirst. Mesmerised, Schuldig leaned down, pressed his cheek on Crawford's forehead, and did nothing but listen to the million ways in which Crawford thought out his name. He fell into the mind he had never tasted like this. To his surprise, it tasted less like steel and more like the sky; if sky had a taste, this would be it.

Then the endless spiral mind gyrated into a dark place where there wasn't so much air as there was too much space, and finally Crawford's consciousness quietly dwindled into nothing. Schuldig was left with just a cold, wounded casing and the mind link that anchored Crawford into the world, into Schuldig. He was haunted by the tenderness he had felt in Crawford's thoughts. Schuldig knew where he had been, he knew he had touched something undisclosed, a private place where welcomes were few and far in between, where secrets were made.

At the end of the day, Schuldig was nothing but an empty reflective cup to be filled with echoes of other people's lives. And at the end of the day, Crawford was nothing more but the lightning rod that grounded Schuldig's energy and kept it from exploding. But without him, what was Schuldig? Without his direction and his reason, Schuldig was but a collection of paperdoll lives. He would have travelled from mind to mind like locusts, because Crawford was the one who told the demons what to do and who gave them purpose, the one who brought purpose and consequence into his hell.

"I'd be fine without you, you know," Schuldig whispered against the truth, his fingers tracing down the line of Crawford's face. What he didn't say, and couldn't say, was that he would have to invent himself again without Crawford, it would be like being born again, and he didn't want that second life.

His eyes lingered on the tufts of messy black hair that peeked out from under the bandages here and there. He thought about Eszett, the future, the present and death, and somehow they all became synonymous with each other.

Crawford's life was a flickering flame fading in the cradle of Schuldig's hands.


	4. One Single Mistake

**Chapter Four  
:: One Single Mistake ::**

Upon hindsight, there were many things he could have done differently. A few steps he could have chosen not to take. A decision he could have decided not to make. Contents of a backpack he could have given more than a second thought to.

But hindsight and second thought were normally something Crawford handled in the past, before they became the present. He walked a path that was level and pre-owned, there were no surprises, no disappointment and no regrets. The present was really nothing but an elaboration of a plan.

There were limits, of course. There were always limits. Schuldig could absorb only so many minds at once, Crawford could reach only so far into the future. A little glimpse of a possibility was what he was used to working with. There was a terrible power in knowing how to tip the balance of cause and consequence, a power so great that even Crawford had given his life over to it. His mistake was to believe that he could control that power. That was why he was left unaware and confused, when the future abandoned him.

He saw how it all fit together now, it was perfect in all its macabre beauty. He appreciated that. The plan was flawless.

He had stood right where he was supposed to. He had known which way the bullets were coming. He had known that very spot would allow him the perfect angle to stop the man who would have shot Schuldig. He had thought he had it all figured out. It was supposed to be perfect. He was supposed to end up feeling smug and satisfied.

He had never *seen* the explosion. He had never known that in choosing to save Schuldig's life, he was giving up his own. One single moment of over-confidence was all it had taken. One single arrogant decision. One single mistake.

He saw his every step backward and forward and knew that he was helpless to stop the reverberations.

Helpless. That was another word he wasn't used to. It had a bad taste that lingered, but like an intense bad taste, he couldn't ignore it. It was stuck in his mind. Helpless, helpless... it was a single word, but it became a world inside him, with layers and rooms and he found a new terrifying realisation in every corner. In this helplessness, feelings cried out that he name them, but he refused all but one ― pain, which he willingly accepted, if only to ward off the others.

Still that other word did not let him go. It was a leech in his mind, and in the darkness when there was nothing else, he found it hard to escape. Eventually, it was impossible to escape it, because the word became entangled into another concept. At the end of every thought, he now faced a single concept.

Too late.

Oracle had never been wrong yet. So he knew to trust what he'd seen.

He was helpless...

Ultimately the only place he could run from his thoughts was Schuldig, now more of him than ever before. Schuldig perturbed him in his sleep, rousing a need that conflicted with the one he was content with. Being held had another meaning in this second need, and he was pushed closer to the edge of his mind, to a place where Schuldig existed not as an independent creature but as a concept, like a limb or some other attachment of similar disposition. This existence penetrated Crawford's dreams until Schuldig was all that he breathed.

That's why, as he woke with a start, the name travelled from his lungs up to his lips. "Schuldig." His voice lacked its usual punctuality and purpose. He felt out of sync with the present, and that terrifying word haunted the outskirts of his mind. Helpless...

_» Crawford? »_

The concept of Schuldig materialised into a pair of hands on his body, but they were fumbling and sleepy, like his thoughts. It was getting cold and dark inside, and Crawford's body was horribly stiff. Still half asleep, Schuldig grabbed Crawford's shoulder. It was the firmness of the touch that woke them both properly.

"Shit," said Schuldig.

For some reason, it occurred to Crawford to say, "It's okay," though it most certainly wasn't. Even though everything fit the plan, it was the wrong plan. It was not okay.

"Fuck, we've slept so long," Schuldig said. "Come on, we need to get going." He leaned down to wrap his arms around Crawford, to help him stand, but a single word had rendered Crawford immobile.

"I can't," Crawford whispered. His lips were dry again, his throat hoarse, it hurt to speak.

"Yes you can. Come on." Schuldig grabbed him tighter.

Crawford didn't move. He lay in the darkness like a ragdoll. He could barely feel his limbs, and what he felt was pain. He didn't know how long he had slept but however long it was it had not been enough. His borrowed eyes wandered on his own bandaged head. It bothered him to see it. That wasn't the image he wanted in Schuldig's mind.

"Don't look at me."

"Crawford." Schuldig didn't stop staring. He was confused and a little nervous, and Crawford was tired of his feelings.

"Stop that."

"Stop what?" Confusion was spreading like a disease, it was making Crawford's world even darker and that cursed word even louder in his head.

"Stop..." Crawford knew what he was trying to say was illogical, and that was possibly the worst part. He started getting angry. "I don't want to feel that." He felt exposed, compromised. He was out of plans, out of future.

"It's the mind link, Crawford. Do you want me to break it?"

Crawford wanted to say yes, but he didn't, really. Schuldig with his feelings and his presence and his eyes that looked in the wrong place were the only thing that kept him from becoming lost in the darkness. He needed to keep his focus. For just a little while longer. Schuldig read the "no" from his mind.

"Then come on." Determination replaced confusion. "You need to get to a hospital, remember?"

_» It's too late. »_ The thought came out without forethought, but it was filled with the future. He knew. He had the future. It was the wrong one, but he knew what it was now. And though the words had come out a little out of time, they were, really, perfectly on time. He refused to be helpless. Refused.

It _was_ too late.

"What do you mean?"

Crawford had gone over the vision many times while drifting back and forth between consciousness and that ultimate darkness which threatened to steal his mind. There was no possibility of a mistake. His visions were really just memories of events that had already happened, with the exceptions of possibilities, but the problem with possibilities was that you needed to know how to extract the future you wanted. For Crawford, there were two kinds of tomorrows, ones that he created and those he chose to destroy. Choice rested with him.

In this forest, he had lost the power of choice. He had no control over tomorrow, and for that reason, all that was tomorrow, right now, was really yesterday.

It all amounted to a single fact that changed everything: "I'm not going to get my eyesight back."

There was something comforting in the way Schuldig didn't need to ask how he knew it. "When did you see this?" Schuldig was holding on to him tight, so tight it hurt, but Crawford didn't want to tell him to let go. He wanted to feel all this in detail.

"You saw it too," Crawford said. He knew Schuldig would have to take his word for it. He was not a trained precognitive, he didn't have the mental discipline to dissect the vision and process it. Maybe some day, he'd learn and he'd see it too, if he thought back on it. Some day in the future that Crawford couldn't see.

The future that would never be his...

Schuldig hesitated for a moment, but with no real understanding of the vision, he couldn't argue with the contents of it. He tried to brush it off with, "So what? I'm sure you've been wrong before."

Crawford shook his head.

Schuldig felt a chill. "Really? Never?"

It was strange to have this conversation with his own eyes. Normally, he would gaze into a pair of blue pools and anticipate their every movement. He would trace the shifts of Schuldig's sharp features that were surrounded by a wilderness of red hair. He saw a wilderness now, too, but it was his own face, his own hair, his own bandaged head, and he didn't even see it through his own eyes. The only way for him to view Schuldig's face was to use his hands.

He lifted his hands and found the sharp features, the line of Schuldig's brow, the tight pursed lips. "Schuldig," it brought him pleasure to speak that name. He traced the details of Schuldig's face with his fingers, gently, gently, with the meticulous delicacy of an artist, like he was painting the image on canvas. He was painting it in his mind.

The telepath closed his eyes, at last. In the darkness, Crawford focused on his hands. They travelled from Schuldig's face down his neck. Every inch was that much closer to the pleasure he didn't have the strength for. He was lost in contemplation of this which had changed his life. The best part of it all was that he knew it had been planned, like the decor of a room, every last detail. He had built it and nurtured it and made it into that which they had now. It had not been easy, but he had done it, and he had his telepath now. He had thought that there was so much more waiting, so much more they would have, so much more _he_ would have, but he supposed that it didn't really matter, in the end.

Maybe his entire life had built toward this moment. Maybe this was why he had taken Schuldig, chosen Schuldig, why he had pursued the plan. Maybe this was the ultimate purpose of it all. If you believed in purpose.

Crawford rather believed in purpose than in helplessness.

"Schuldig," he repeated the name like a caress. "I want you to do me a favour."

Schuldig's every instinct was telling him to refuse. Crawford felt the discord in the surface thoughts that got tangled up, snagged in the mind link. But he was transfixed by the way Crawford was touching him, captured by the precognitive's complete focus. He, too, could feel how time itself trembled, awaiting the next breath.

"What is it?" Schuldig whispered.

"Promise me to do it."

Crawford knew that Schuldig wouldn't be able to refuse. They both knew the significance of the word "favour". Crawford was asking, because he needed this. That meant Schuldig had the power to refuse him. He had power over Crawford, right now. Schuldig couldn't resist it. Just like always, he gave the choice and the power to Schuldig, so the telepath made the decision Crawford wanted from him. It was like a spell, one he put Schuldig under with his voice and with his thoughts and with his hands that were searching down, down, on the telepath's body.

Schuldig's mind let go a notch. "All right."

Crawford smiled. His hands wandered down until they found Schuldig's gun. He picked it out of the holster and pressed it against Schuldig's chest. "Shoot me."

It was the determination that snapped Schuldig out of it, broke the spell, alerted Schuldig to what Crawford was actually saying. He reacted to it with shock, "I'm not going to kill you."

"You promised."

"No." A single word, emphatic, packed with emotion. "Besides, how am I going to find the car without you?"

The telepath was just making excuses. Crawford replied gently, "You know which way the car is. You've seen it in my mind now." Just as he had seen how to survive without Crawford. He had seen enough. He would understand. He would be fine without Crawford.

Schuldig shook his head stubbornly. "Crawford." Schuldig put his hand on Crawford's cheek and held tight. He touched Crawford's forehead with his own. "You can't expect me to do this."

Crawford grabbed the back of Schuldig's head, fisted the sunset hair. He breathed in deep, wishing he could make out the smell of that hair instead of everything... everything else. And for a moment, the thought of Schuldig's hair, his own inability to see it right now stung. He couldn't even smell it. Instead, it was like he could smell how wrong this was.

He squeezed his eyes shut tighter, tighter. The hardest part wasn't that he was asking this. It was that he was asking too soon. For a moment, he couldn't stop thinking about Schuldig without Crawford. What would happen to the redhead without him? Who would be his new leader? Now that he was holding Schuldig so close, pressing the gun to the telepath's chest, his heart was filling with dark, dark fury against the fate he had already settled on. Who would take his telepath? For one desperate, angry moment, he wanted to *see* it, so much that he pushed his talent...

...but there was simply nowhere to push. The future was ebbing into nothing inside him, spiralling toward a single point in the centre. His feelings formed a knot inside him. He couldn't find a way to reach past the moment.

Just as well. Schuldig with someone else was not the last thing he wanted to see.

No, what he needed right now was Schuldig here, the gun in his hand, those were the only things he needed to think about. His last moment wouldn't be what he had wanted, but he wouldn't be helpless. This would be his choice. He knew what the alternative was, and Schuldig knew as well.

Peace returned to him. Crawford's voice was gentle again, "Remember what I said about Eszett?"

"No." It was a lie, but with all his being, Schuldig willed himself not to remember.

"You know what they will do to me. I don't want to live like that." Crawford pressed the gun against Schuldig's chest harder. "You promised."

Promise. Schuldig's mind stumbled all over that word until everything inside him stopped completely. It was not an easy word for Schuldig. His relationship with the concept of honour was vague at best, but promises were something else. Other people's promises were illusions, some were like rules, made to be broken. But his own promises defined him and gave his thoughts a shape. Promises were the truth. Schuldig's relationship with truth was absolute.

And this was Crawford. A possibly dying Crawford. A blind Crawford. A blind, helpless Crawford, who had asked something from Schuldig with his dying breath.

Wonderful. He had been royally tricked there. Schuldig stared at Crawford. "You fucker."

Crawford simply waited.

Schuldig yanked his head away from Crawford's grip. The precog felt the telepath's body disappearing, slipping away like the elusive temporary thing it had always been. Schuldig yanked the gun from Crawford's hand and stood up. The precognitive listened to his footsteps, softly shuffling in the undergrowth. Crawford heard the storm inside the telepath's mind, rising, rising. He listened to the argument Schuldig had with himself. He knew what the conclusion would be, so he simply waited. You should never rush the future.

Click.

Hammer was cocked, the gun was ready. Crawford knew that it was pointed at him. He felt the cold surfaces shining with bright white light somewhere inside Schuldig. The telepath would have to make the decision fast, he'd act on impulse before he'd change his mind. Crawford felt the terrible trembling beneath the surface, trying to break loose, but Schuldig was fighting it. Crawford wished he would have seen that face, because he couldn't tell at all... he couldn't tell. Schuldig's insides were like ice, he swung his hand up fast, because he wanted this to be over. Over. Fast.

Schuldig's voice was even. Steady. "Goodbye, Crawford."

It was as uncomplicated as that, in the end. Crawford smiled. He stretched out his arms to lie comfortably on the undergrowth. He was ready.

There was a gunshot.

Schuldig fell.

Thud.

The impact stole the air out of Crawford's lungs. What..?

It took him a moment to realise that the world was not gone, that the sudden jolt of pain that afflicted him was not his own. Schuldig.

_» Crawford... »_ Schuldig sounded surprised.

"Schuldig," Crawford whispered hoarsely, shock setting in when he felt all the warm blood, the seizures through the telepath's body as if they were his own. The sight of the sky made him feel like he was falling. Crawford crawled, searched, groped to find the telepath's fallen body.

Blood. No. No. No.

His hands fumbled through the procedure of determining where the wound was. He pressed his hand on top of it, collapsed on top of the telepath to rest his weight on it, like he might keep life from spilling out and block death with his own body.

The world lurched as Schuldig moved his gaze from the sky. Seeing through the mind link was like looking in a mirror with extra flavour: Schuldig was looking at him, and what the telepath saw brought him pleasure. But Crawford didn't want to see his own face.

"Schuldig," he whispered again, like he could conjure out the image of the telepath by repeating his name many enough times.

But all he saw was his own face. Every single line of it was drawn with perfect detail in his mind. It took him a moment to realise that it didn't look like it was supposed to. His head wasn't covered in bandages. It was a face he had seen in the mirror a hundred times. His black hair hung over a pair of golden, intense eyes, there was a half-formed smile on his lips. There was something simply Right about that face.

The way it felt like to look at that face haunted Crawford when the memory melted away and the reality was back. Crawford saw his own shocked, wide eyes.

Schuldig let out a soft chuckle. He raised his hand up, to cup Crawford's cheek. He just couldn't get enough of touching that face. It was such a strange face. It was such a perfect face, for this moment.

No, no, those weren't Crawford's thoughts.

"Schuldig." Crawford mouthed the word because barely any voice came out. He pressed his hand and his weight on Schuldig's wound desperately, like he could put life back into him, put a stopper in the crack that was swallowing a second after second ― like he could stop this from happening. He wanted to be able to control it.

Something in there somewhere responded. It's was as if there was some thought there, swimming just underneath the surface. But it never emerged. Schuldig barely even heard him. He was somewhere else, somewhere far away, slipping away into places Crawford couldn't follow. All that Crawford caught was the smile.

Schuldig's thoughts were smiling at the image of his face, _» Oh look... Crawford. »_

With that, as if he'd said everything he ever meant to or wanted to say in his entire life, Schuldig's mind slipped away. Instinctively, Crawford reached after it. Completely automatically, Crawford leaped forward, fell forward, trying to grope for a hold of what he felt escaping. He didn't realise he was reaching physically as well, until he found his lips from on top of Schuldig's. Crawford opened his mouth, maybe he could breathe life back in the telepath's lungs.

Instead, he tasted the smile that still lingered on the line of Schuldig's mouth. It tasted like warm blood, but the smile felt cold and frozen. Crawford gasped back and squeezed his eyes shut. No. No. His fingers trembled as they found the smile.

It was a smile of pleasure.

Which Crawford couldn't see.

_» Schuldig... »_

No answer.

None at all.

Gone.

Schuldig was gone.

No.

He had expected that there would be a snap of some kind. He had expected that the breaking link would make some kind of noise. He hadn't anticipated that Schuldig would simply sink into silence, disappear, drift away. Slip from his hands like an escaping fish. No. It was impossible to accept that the telepath could be gone like this, without making a number out of it.

Crawford opened his eyes, still uselessly searching for that smile, but it was not until after a moment that he realised in shock, "Schuldig, I can see."

Not through his eyes, though. It was his gift. His talent had kicked in. He knew because everything felt unnatural. They were glimpses, really, flickers of images, the curve of a brow, the line of a nose and a pair of blue gemstones. It was a true second sight, struggling to replace his natural one. The images weren't complete and they came with that detached feeling where he was in two places at once, where time reached on until infinity, and he could see those staring blue eyes in all those seconds that stretched on. And on.

And on.

He laughed, louder and louder. "I can see." He pressed his cheek in against Schuldig's. Still warm. Still fucking warm. The laughter continued until he was trembling and gasping, and it wasn't laughter any more. He lifted his face and saw the ghost of that stupid, stupid smile on those blood-stained lips.

What the hell, Schuldig?

He couldn't understand what had happened, and that was as unnatural as staring at Schuldig's frozen mouth.

"What the fuck did you do?" Crawford whispered. He was shaking. He couldn't believe it. Had the request been too much for Schuldig after all? Had he miscalculated the telepath's attachment to him? Had the redhead been stupid enough to... to..?

He didn't even realise that what he rested his hands on was not an entrance wound.

Crawford's lips hovered close to Schuldig's, but the telepath's breath was missing. He kept on reaching mentally, but Schuldig was simply missing. Crawford had never realised just how much _noise_ Schuldig was even when he wasn't doing anything. It was like having got so used to listening to the hum of a radiator that when it was suddenly gone, you noticed.

Crawford was alone. It had never been so quiet.

Crawford's hands wandered on Schuldig's limp body like looking for something though he didn't even know what it was. He simply couldn't accept that the telepath was gone. Not like this. He put his fingers through the red hair and ran his hands on Schuldig's chest, his stomach, his arms, the neck and even those damned smiling lips, everywhere he could reach. It felt almost natural after having used his hands as the primary method of sensing the world around him for a while. It was like holding the world at his fingertips, and right now all the world was Schuldig's body. He found the gun on the ground next to Schuldig's hand. It was Schuldig's favourite. There were memories in that gun, memories that had been in Schuldig's mind.

They were in Crawford's, too. He squeezed it in his hands. Only then he realised that it was completely cold. It hadn't been fired.

The next moment, there was a voice and hands around him. He realised that something was very wrong.

"Why?" he croaked as they pulled him up on his feet. "Why did you shoot him?"

A voice filled with contempt answered, "You compromised him during the mind link." The agent said it like the matter wasn't important in the least, like it was just another telepath they had terminated.

Crawford had made many decisions he never regretted. He wasn't one to regret. Regretting was for fools who never thought forward, who never saw forward, who were blind and deaf to what was coming. It was all maths, really. He would calculate the risks and weigh his options and come to the only conclusion, the right conclusion. There was no place for regret in maths.

But when the future returned to him and he realised the extent of his mistake, it was regret that took the strength from Crawford's limbs.

* * *

The funniest thing was that he had never seen it. It was so funny that he sometimes woke up laughing. Most of the time, though, he would just lay quietly, painfully aware that no one was there to hear his loudest thoughts.

If he could only figure out what to do with his hands.

He would lie in bed on his back and reach over and meet nothing. He would wake up with one arm spread out on a pillow next to him and his foot tangled into the blanket, with no recollection of his dreams except for a smile that disappointed him by its absence when he opened his eyes. Sometimes he fell asleep on the wrong pillow. He missed the scent that should have been there so much that he ended up throwing the pillow across the room.

He hadn't quite known what to do with the bed, anyway. He liked sleeping in beds wide enough for two, but now the bed was divided in two halves and he didn't know how to merge them. He had tried sleeping in the middle; but it had made the absence only spread thinner over a wider area. There was always too much room on one side, and too little on the other, and he didn't know which way to turn, until he couldn't sleep at all.

He would forget to watch his hands. They wandered on his body but he wasn't sure if it was more to please his body or his hands; which one did he miss more, the touch or the act of touching?

It wasn't his heart that felt the pain, it was his body. It wasn't his soul, it was his hands. His hands remembered too well.

But it wasn't grief, really. It was anger. Anger without direction took him everywhere and nowhere, and in the silence that came before the sleep it took him back to the beginning and to the end, like a looped record, playing the events over and over again. The replay always ended to Schuldig's body in his hands, and to the broken existence afterward.

They had stitched him up, checked him out and determined that he could be recovered. They didn't know what exactly was wrong with his eyes ― his physical eyesight was decidedly gone, his brain apparently incapable of processing any type of visual stimulus. But from the first vague sensations toward a more solid sense of perception, Crawford's gift built to slowly but surely replace his eyesight. At first, it had been difficult to differentiate between what he was seeing in the present and what was occurring in the future. They said that they needed to study the phenomenon and train him. He had the choice ― his stay in the laboratories would be short-lived if he cooperated. It had been a string of endless examinations and telepaths in his mind, poking and prodding, reconfiguring and maybe it was only his anger that had made it possible for him to hang onto some semblance of sanity through it all. He barely had a memory of any of it, aside from his repeated answers to the same questions.

The answers had been simple. _Yes, mein Herr. Yes. Yes. Yes._

Yes, until he felt like he was at home on his knees. He must have passed the examinations, because they had been satisfied. They appeared to be amused enough over his intense feelings for his telepath to believe that a failure to resist the temptation to share with him was the extent of his betrayal. They believed that he had been emotionally compromised ― they classified it as a failure to separate personal from professional. For his past exemplary record, for his past achievements and for his obvious desire to cooperate, they gave him a second chance, one for which they expected him to show gratitude. Profusely.

He had expected them to erase Schuldig from his mind. He had expected them to fix this attachment, but they had said that an artificial cure would always be nothing more than that, artificial. He needed to prove that he could fix this himself.

So he had tried. Once they had decided that he was fit for field duty again, they had made him go through the items they had found in the hotel room and clear his life of everything that had been Schuldig's. Perhaps it was supposed to purge his feelings. He got rid of the clothes, the toothbrush, the accessories. When it was all done, he found it was like Schuldig had never existed, if you didn't know any better.

He knew better, though. Maybe that's why he kept the gun. It was Schuldig's favourite.

Crawford had always believed that Schuldig would be the death of him, it only made sense. Schuldig had become a fixture in his life. He was used to protecting his telepath, used to being one step ahead. How could Schuldig's death ever surprise him? No... he was used to expecting that he would die first, probably on account of something stupid that Schuldig had done ― actually, he had grown quite fond of the idea. Crawford was entirely unprepared for outliving his partner. He had kept seeing forward and Schuldig was there, so maybe he was just too used to it?

If he could only figure out what to do with his hands. Sometimes he would sit for hours, his hands in his lap, staring. His gift rarely worked backward, his sight was about the future, soon, tomorrow. Not yesterday. But this was like a vision on his palms, on his fingertips, very real. The body was there, in his hands, and he couldn't shake it.

In the end, he could only sleep by turning his back toward the empty half of the bed. His hands found temporary peace from holding the gun to his chest. He wondered if the only way his body would find peace was to have the bullet that had been stolen from him.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** To be continued, as implied in the first chapter. I will update here when Part II is fully complete.


	5. -- MINDS --

**Author's Notes:** I mentioned at the end of _Hands_ that I would update when the rest of the story was done. It's turning out that "the rest of the story" is longer than I anticipated, and I started to feel like it was unfair to keep my ffnet followers waiting. So here we go. Let's get back to what exactly happened to the boys.

I should mention here that while _Hands_ works fine as a standalone fic, the rest of this will make much more sense if you've read the rest of the epic starting from the _Case of the Red Demon._ On occasion, I refer to details from other fics, but overall this should work fine even without the complete background story.

And finally, a couple of character cliffnotes: I refer to and/or include some not-so-popular canon characters, e.g. Colonel Amlisch from the drama CDs. My original characters Adelbert Dietrich and Dmitri Komarov (familiar to you if you've read the previous installments of the fanverse) get a fair bit of screen time.

With no further ado... let's get on with the story, shall we?

* * *

**~ Shattered ~  
Part Two: Minds**

The mistake may turn out to be a blessing in disguise. If he can work with the telepath he hates the most.

* * *

**- MINDS -**

**Prologue**

_"You coming, Crawford?"_

_"In a minute."_

_"Is that, a minute, or, when you're ready?"_

_"Both."_

_The red-haired telepath rolled his eyes in the doorway, slinging his jacket over his shoulder. The precognitive knew exactly where he was and what he was doing, or rather he knew what Schuldig was going to do, two seconds from now, and it was the only reason he was still lingering by the computer._

"Schuldig," Crawford murmured. His hand was moving for a non-existent target, near his waist where the telepath had put his hand. He felt his own hand and woke to the touch. His eyes stared toward the pillow next to him, though his gaze didn't focus. It didn't have to. He didn't see it. His retina might have picked up the view of the empty white surface, but if it was ever processed through his brain was unclear ― doctors weren't sure of what was going on with Crawford's eyesight, at this point. For all anyone knew, his vision was back to normal, or perhaps he was blind but his talent had fully replaced the physical senses. The brain was a tricky thing that way.

Did it matter, really? Either way, he was still reaching for an empty pillow.

His hand travelled up the surface of the sheets to the pillow. Empty, with a slight dent. Sheets around him were all stirred and their position such that reminded him of the red-haired company he had kept but a few hours ago. He hadn't allowed her to stay, of course. Never.

But it made the nights so quiet.

Crawford rolled over, dropped his feet off the bed and leaned his elbows to his knees, buried his face in his hands. Black hair hung messy and unkempt, he was tired, so tired.

_»You look awful.»_

"Well, you're not here to appreciate it."

_»And whose fault is that?»_

Whose fault?

"Shut up."

He had begun to finish the imaginary conversations. That was all they were, words and thoughts in his mind, as unreal as the silence on the other side of the bed. He ran his fingers through his hair and pressed his head in between his arms, squeezing, like that would help. Like he could have squeezed it all out.

Crawford stood up and made it to the bathroom and to the tap. In the silence of the hotel room, the sound of rushing water was a pleasant distraction. He kept one hand under the water, staring at the shifting surface of the liquid.

_»Come.»_

Crawford didn't even blink. His mind tried to find somewhere else to be. Something else to be. He wanted to be alone. Yes. There was a time he thought that was all he would ever be. All he would ever want to be.

Now?

He still wanted to be alone. More than before. But he couldn't shake this voice from his mind.

_»Come.»_

His smile was always plastic as he held the wine glass and nodded to the ambassadors and the attachés and the various diplomats and bureaucrats and other meaningless, useless people. His mind was to the business, his talent sharpened, his words honey and gold, but he missed the gaping hole to his left, where the telepath was supposed to be. He had never wanted to work with a telepath, but it was like they said ― once they sneaked in, they were impossible to remove. Some residue was always left like grains of sand.

Fucking telepaths.

_»Come.»_

Go. Away.

He knew why he had been assigned to these missions. It was a penance exercise and a test of patience. They wanted to remind him that he had to start all over. They wanted him to understand that he would need to prove himself. They wanted to punish him for his failure.

That was, really, the worst part. They had taken his telepath, but they blamed him for it. They had said that he wasn't qualified to lead a team anymore. He had accepted it, there was no choice. But that was the worst part. It was worse than squandering the organisation's money, worse than breaking their property. Worse than losing your soul. Every day, he became more and more aware of the fact that he had _lost_. Failed.

Brad Crawford did not fail. It wasn't in his manual.

So maybe, at the end of the day, it wasn't so much losing Schuldig. Really, he was just another telepath. He could be replaced with another. What really stung was the failure.

_»Liar.»_

Shut. Up.

Crawford was beginning to feel like maybe they were right, saying that he couldn't handle challenging missions any more. He had these conversations ― were they conversations? Just isolated thoughts, but damn, if the voice would just stop sounding like Schuldig.

_»Come.»_

It was a thought, a need. A longing, just a wish. Just a wish. He wished for the familiar push and the thought that wasn't supposed to be his own, but it was, now. It was. He looked up at the mirror in front of him.

_»Come.»_

Mirrors were the hardest thing. It was a surface that barely registered. He examined his own face, the jaw and the eyes, the eyes... the eyes. He touched the corner of his eye, brushed his fingers past his face. His eyes ― how much did they register? He was no more certain than the doctors were. The link between his eyes and his talent had become seamless. Like a well forged weapon, his vision worked as a combination of its elements. They never touched a precognitive's eyes, because they believed that the eyes were an instrument of the gift, but what had happened to Crawford proved that it could work in reverse. Most blind precognitives became nothing but useless vessels for their gift. Crawford was different.

_»Come.»_

The word, no, the thought was pervasive. He touched his temple and rubbed it. He had listened to that voice for so long that he had almost forgotten that it wasn't his own. He missed that voice. He missed it so much that he still imagined it. That was all this was. A stupid longing for something he was too used to having.

He should have let her stay. He could go and feel warmth and forget, if she was still here. Though he couldn't even remember her name.

_»Come.»_

"Shut up," Crawford muttered, wiping his face. He closed his eyes and leaned onto the sink, his head hanging down. "Shut up, Schuldig."

He could practically hear the smirk.

* * *

_-Elsewhere-_

A tall figure in a uniform loomed in front of a large window in a dark room. His hands were behind his back, his strong body erect, shoulders rigid. His head was slightly tilted to a nod, causing his long black hair to coil on his shoulders and spill over to his chest. His grey eyes gleamed from under the sharp eyebrows, fixed to the window, unblinking, like a bird of prey. The bright light from the other side of the window brought out every vicious line of his cold, malicious face.

A grey-haired man flitted out of the shadows like a ghost. His hands were hanging by his sides. His deep-set, hollow eyes didn't spare a single glance toward the window. His purpose for being here was offered out on the surface of his mind. He didn't need to speak a word to attract his partner's attention.

The telepath's cold presence spidered through the shadows of the precognitive's mind, studying the vision he had brought to him.

A dark, ominous fire set the telepath's face alive. "Ahh... I see. It's time, then."

The precognitive's dark eyes might as well have belonged to a dead man. His only response was a slow, humble bow of the head, just deep enough to include a slight dip of the shoulders. The telepath didn't even glance over his shoulder to acknowledge it. Instead, he stepped closer to the window and placed both of his palms against the glass. His lips curved toward an excited, terrible smile.

"We are ready for him, my pet," he purred, "aren't we?"

He was not talking to the man standing next to him. Slowly, the hollow eyes drifted from the telepath toward the window.

They both stared at a pale, red-haired young man lying quietly on a bed, hooked up to a dozen different equipment in a brightly lit room on the other side of the glass — his chest rising and falling to the rhythm of his even, calm breathing.


	6. Not Possible

**- MINDS -**

**Chapter One  
:: not possible ::**

Eternity was supposed to mean nothing but a single stretched-out blink of an eye to someone with Crawford's talent. When you touch the future, all tomorrows become one. Time was supposed to disappear.

But time existed for Crawford.

Every day, he found that his personal eternity was irretrievably altered. It wasn't a compressed point outside of time where everything had already happened, like it was supposed to be for one like him. It was a tomorrow filled with yesterday.

It was entirely Schuldig's fault. Schuldig and the end of Schuldig were two things that really should have been one and the same thing, for one with Crawford's talent.

But they simply weren't.

A part of what he was, inside, was simply Not Right. It was easier to be critical these days, but an analysis of his mistakes was really nothing more than a useless penance exercise ― a ritual he practised every day because he hoped that one day, the conclusion of the analysis would be different. Maybe one day, he would add and reduce and divide and reach a different balance.

He wanted to reach peace.

Once upon a time yesterday, he had wanted to build his eternity with his own two hands. He had worked to create a purpose, and to realize a plan. Schuldig had never meant to be part of any of that and Crawford had never meant for him to be, but once it had happened, it was irreversible. Crawford's purpose no longer knew where it was headed and his plans lacked motivation. Something was missing.

Schuldig was missing.

Schuldig's absence was a silence that wanted to be filled with noise. It was an unfulfilled desire. Crawford had never believed that being alone could be a lonely exercise, because ultimately, his emotional isolation meant that he was independent. He had conquered the demon of loneliness a long time ago.

He had thought that he had.

An essential component of Brad Crawford's eternity had disappeared.

_Schuldig..._

* * *

It started at one of those parties that were a welcome distraction from the torture of his mundane everyday everything. He was standing next to the man he had been assigned to handle. His team leader had said that he could expect to earn points toward a better assignment after his next performance review if he did this right. It was the most important assignment he had received since his return to the field, which was why he needed to perform well.

So the last thing he welcomed was a red-haired vision in a green coat, throwing his head back, laughing, his blue eyes sparkling mischievously. There, right across from him, in his direct line of sight in between two men's shoulders.

He knew it wasn't really there.

_Go away, Schuldig._ Fucking telepath. Go away. Go away.

_"Buzz, buzz, buzz..."_ whispered a voice in his head. _"Little bees, looking for honey. They're ba-ack. Weiss is sniffing about Mr Takatori's business again."_ Soft laughter rippled off the half parted lips. The blue eyes drifted toward the left, like Schuldig was following someone with his gaze.

Schuldig.

What.

The.

Crawford blinked. The blue eyes were gone. Red hair was gone. The vision was all gone. But the buzz in his head remained, rustling like paper crumpled into a ball in his hands.

It wasn't a memory.

That had never happened.

Yet.

Crawford heard the crunching sound but didn't realise that the pain was there until he heard the gasps and realised that the man next to him wheeled around in surprise. He registered the horrified expression. Dazed, he looked down at his fist. Covered in blood. Glass shards cut deep into his flesh. With a broken inhale he released his death grip of the remnants of the wine glass. A shower of crushed glass fell. He stared at the mosaic of shattered glass and white wine on the floor next to his shoes.

But he didn't see it. He was haunted by a single word. Yet.

Yet.

No. Not possible.

"With me," said a voice next to him. A hand was gripping his right shoulder, very tight. Pushing him farther from the others. There was someone else, too. Crawford realised that his team leader was hastily apologising to the rest of the company while leading him away. Another operative stepped up to assume his place. His assignment was over. This would reflect negatively on his record.

But right now, that didn't even matter. He closed his eyes, because that had used to help. It didn't, really, these days. Not ever since...

"Oracle. What did you see?"

"Sir," he said, to acknowledge the order. But no words came out. He was supposed to report significant visions, but this... this was only personally significant. It was private.

Besides, it was impossible. It was an everyday event from an everyday mission, but it was Schuldig and it hadn't happened yet. It was private because it was Schuldig and because it meant...

Hell, he wasn't sure what it meant.

Schuldig was dead. Crawford couldn't possibly end up on a new mission with him. In Japan.

Japan. Yes. He recognised the place. Even the name was familiar. Mr. Takatori... he had dealt with men of that name during his visits to Japan. But he did not know who or what was Weiss. This was the future, this was Schuldig, exactly the way he had been, right down to that smirk, but it was impossible.

Impossible.

Suddenly he realised he was being whirled around. Thrown against a wall. It hurt, as did the hand against his chest, pressing so hard that due to the impact with the wall, he momentarily lost his breath. He blinked rapidly but he didn't really need his eyes to tell where they were. They were in a small room near the ballroom, completely private.

Emmeneger's eyes were hard. "Oracle," he said harshly. "Report."

Crawford picked the only option he could, to avoid admitting to being, once again, emotionally compromised. "I'm sorry, sir. I believe it's classified."

"Classified?" Emmeneger narrowed his eyes. "That so?"

"Yes, sir. Herr Emmeneger." What are you doing, Oracle? Madness. "I need to study the vision. It might be urgent."

Madness. He was lying effortlessly, but it was like someone else was speaking the words, because he had no real plan. Only instinct. He went on automatic. The calm disguise took over like living breathing second skin. Instinct... or maybe his talent, maybe they were one and the same.

Maybe these days, there was no Brad Crawford, only Oracle.

His team leader paused. He obviously considered whether to believe it or not. Crawford waited, his bleeding hand hanging by his side, his face falling back into place, his eyes staring blindly past Emmeneger's shoulder. The pain in his hand was turning into a numb, dull ache.

Emmeneger released him with an irritable, "Phaugh!" He whisked his head in a gesture filled with contempt, like he was chasing away an ill-behaved child. "Go, then."

Crawford gave a sharp bow, snapped around on his heels and left. He left the glass shards in the cuts. He cradled his wounded hand to his chest to avoid dripping blood on the floors. He was trembling with a terrible, determined sense of presence. Like his talent had just become a million times more potent.

His mind was alive and dead at the same time.

Exactly like Schuldig, apparently...

Not possible. Simply not possible. The very idea of it... Schuldig was gone. Gone. There would be no mission in Japan. There would be just an endless row of tedious missions such as this one, until he would have proven his usefulness all over again, and then... then...

...but...

Schuldig's voice. It was laughing in his head. _»Come...»_

No, no, no. No. Not possible.

He gasped and leaned his elbow to the wall, his wounded hand trembling against his chest. Not possible. His eyes searched the empty air in front of him. Just empty air. Empty. Nothing there. No red hair. Never again.

_»Come...»_

_»Sch-Schuldig..?»_ He sent the thought out tentatively, cautiously, he didn't dare call it hopeful. There was almost dread in the way he stood there waiting, holding his breath, like he believed that the telepath would answer after all. It simply wasn't possible. But... he kept hearing him... so maybe...

A silence lingered. Crawford closed his eyes. A fool. _You are a fool, Brad Crawford. You don't believe in miracles. Remember that._ He started to walk again.

Crawford kept his eyes closed the whole way into his room. It didn't really matter whether his eyes were open or closed. He no longer needed his eyes to see.

No matter how much he tried to convince himself of the fact that this was not possible, by the time he closed the door after him, he was certain that it was real. Schuldig was alive.

Oracle had never been wrong yet.

He went directly to the bathroom. He picked out the glass shards, then washed away the blood. He cleaned and dressed his wound with quick, jagged motions. Crawford felt like someone else was doing all this. His mind was elsewhere, in the future, busily running through a scenario, fixing up the details, figuring out what he needed to do. He had told his team leader that he needed to study the vision, and that part was certainly true. He needed to not only study it, he needed to coax out more.

This wasn't enough. Not enough.

Once the wounds were dressed, he wandered out of the bathroom and over to the mini-bar. He yanked open the door and scanned the shelves. He couldn't really concentrate on what he was doing, and that made it harder to tell where anything was. At moments like this, he was painfully reminded of the fact that his eyes did not really process the world around him. When he was distracted, his second sight became unreliable. He reached in for a bottle and ended up missing it by several inches.

"Fuck," he muttered.

Crawford pulled his glasses off his nose. He had to resist the urge to crush them in his hand. He didn't really need the glasses these days, but he was unwilling to stop wearing them. They were part of the disguise, part of the shell of a man he was comfortable showing to the rest of the world.

Right now, he did not want to wear the disguise. He slammed the glasses on top of the mini-bar and rubbed his face. The man inside the shell was shaking. He kept his eyes closed and his face buried in his hands. He let out several oaths under his breath. He should not be falling apart because of this!

_Focus, Oracle, focus,_ he told himself strictly. _You want something from the mini-bar. Focus on finding it._

He fumbled with his injured hand to pick out a few bottles to mix a drink. He needed alcohol.

Crash. He dropped something on the floor. It shattered.

"Shit!"

It took a few minutes for him to finally find a proper hold of a bottle, and even then he wasn't sure if it was the one he wanted. He always kept his bottles in a very specific order, just in case he ever got distracted like this, so that he would still find them in case his talent malfunctioned. But by now, he had no idea if he had mixed up the bottles while groping through the mini-bar.

Crawford's fingers clenched around the bottle. He considered for a fleeting moment whether it made any difference if it was the one he had wanted to find. Maybe he should consume the contents of the bottle straight up, not bother with mixing a drink.

Or better yet, he might get his favourite whisky. Enough alcohol should open up his gift. Give him all the visions he needed.

Yes. He needed more visions.

Crawford left all the bottles in the mini-bar and closed the door. He stumbled across the room to his bed and fell on his knees in front of the bedside table. He didn't even register the fact that he left bloody stains on the rug because of the blood he had spilled all over his trousers. He opened the small cabinet and reached in for the whisky. His sense of purpose sharpened his gift. He found the bottle easily.

He tested its weight. It wasn't full. He clutched the bottle convulsively. Schuldig had still been alive the last time he had drank from the bottle. They had enjoyed a few glasses of whisky together one night. He remembered how the telepath had played with his glass. His fingers had moved nice and slow around and around and around...

Crawford had not touched the bottle since.

Hugging the bottle close to his chest, he stumbled up and crawled up on top of the bed. It was at that point that he remembered that he had forgotten to bring a glass from the mini-bar.

Oh well. He could do without. He slid his thumb on the bottle, to mark the place. There. That's how much he would dare drink.

He swallowed the first couple of gulps a little too quickly, without stopping to savour the taste like he normally did. He enjoyed the way the liquid burned his throat. Everything had become so surreal ever since his talent had replaced his eyesight. As a result, physical sensations felt surreal and real at the same time. Just like the memory of the hands touching him, or of the warm body that had once moved against his own, like this... he slid his hand down—

_»Crawford.»_

He downed a third sip. The burn reminded him about the fire in his mind, the fire in his bed, the fire in between these sheets, the teeth sliding on his skin, biting, the sighing mouth, a purposeful hand that held onto him so tight that he would know he was alive.

Fire in his brain. And a different kind of fire down his throat...

"Schuldig," he whispered hoarsely, his injured fist shaking on the bed, never minding that it hurt like hell. He raised the bottle to his lips for the fourth time. Just another tiny, tiny sip. Tiny. Like when he had tasted this same poison with his telepath, many weeks ago. Might as well have been many lifetimes ago.

Just a tiny sip. Tiny.

He had barely dared to touch alcohol at all since losing Schuldig, because he feared that once he permitted his mind to be set alive by that haze even once, he might not be able to ever find his way out again. But now, he had to find answers. That excuse was more than good enough a reason to take another sip.

And another, and another.

Too fast.

He was considerably more drunk than he had intended to be by the time he heard the voice again.

_»You old fool.»_

"You're right, Schuldig. I am old, aren't I?" Crawford muttered quietly. "Too old to believe in fairy tales... it probably wasn't a real vision." He let out a quiet sound and took another sip. "Fuck," he muttered into the mouth of the bottle. "I guess I'm a fool, too."

_»Come.»_

"Come where?" Crawford demanded from the disembodied voice. "Japan? Is that where you are? With Takatori?"

_»Come...»_

He shook his head. Just a figment of his imagination. Nothing more... nothing more...

He took another sip. He didn't really feel the tears that streamed down his cheeks. Eventually, he fell asleep on the bed, clutching the half-empty whisky bottle close to his chest. He had not seen a single new vision.

But he did see a dream.


	7. Fates Collide

**- MINDS -**

**Chapter Two  
:: fates collide ::**

Crawford picked up his suitcase, pulled out the laptop and placed it on the coffee table. The laptop was an exclusive Eszett device, nothing like its clumsy counterparts developed by common, non-psychically gifted engineers. It was one of the many advantages of being a talented precognitive. Crawford was slightly surprised that he had been cleared to carry one, after his transgression. But his visions had been invaluable to them in the past. He knew that that fact was probably the only reason they had let him live. They expected him to prove to them that it was the right decision by helping along Eszett's future.

Right now, Crawford had not picked up the laptop in order to attend to Eszett's future. He was about to repair his own. He sat down on the couch. He ran his fingers through his hair.

"Schuldig," he whispered. "How?"

Ever since he had recovered from his injuries after the explosion, it had been as if he had his eyes wide open at the back of his skull. Always. He had been able to *see* more than ever before.

Yet he hadn't seen that Schuldig was alive.

He shook his head in disbelief. "Time to get your act together, Oracle," he muttered irritably.

He opened the lid of the laptop and switched it on. He swept his finger over the fingerprint scanner built onto the case, then waited for the first script. He typed in a few commands, gave his password, then waited again while the next script flashed on the screen. His fingers were knit, his thumbs circling one another in quick motions. His thoughts wandered in the events of his missions in Japan and in the futures of a couple of little boys he had met there.

Especially one.

"Mamoru," Crawford mused. "Strange how fates collide. How have you fared? I trust everything has gone according to plan?"

He tapped his thumbs together, then supported his chin on his knit fingers. He ran the past through his mind like videotape. Instinct got him to hand out his thoughts for the telepath and the words dropped from his lips automatically.

"What do you think, Schuldig?"

It took him a full minute to realise what he had said and why the silence that dragged on made him feel sick. With an annoyed sound, he straightened his back and shook his hands like he could shake it all off.

"Schuldig," he said angrily. "Get out of my head."

A useless command, since the telepath wasn't really there. Crawford's jaws set tighter.

"I'm going mad," he said grimly. "And it's your fault."

_»Whose fault?»_

"You're the guilty one," Crawford snapped back at the disembodied voice. "Now shut up. I need to work."

It was entirely unfair that though the telepath wasn't there, Crawford still imagined the roll of eyes, the leer and the return jab that was never spoken out loud. Moodily, he returned to the laptop. He entered a few more commands and credentials and navigated through a few more screens before he was finally face to face with the final login screen. And then he paused to re-evaluate his plan.

He was about to contact the head of the clairvoyant sub-division. Even common field precognitives were permitted to bypass normal chain of command and contact her directly to ensure that all critical and classified information they might receive in visions would be relayed safely, but the woman was a peevish old precognitive. She would have Crawford's balls for breakfast if she was disturbed on this channel for something she didn't feel was worth her time.

Crawford was about to lie to her. His pride had suffered blows that should have crushed him. He wasn't supposed to _dare_ a stunt like this, after everything.

That, of course, was exactly why he dared.

Crawford inserted his credentials and hit enter. He was transferred to a meeting lobby. The encrypted connection would be automatically terminated within a few minutes, if the woman chose not to let his call through. But within a minute, a flash on the screen announced a successful connection. He was transferred to a second lobby. His call would be taken soon.

Given the time — Crawford checked his watch — he should catch her at a fairly opportune time. She would probably be done with the most urgent business of the day but would not be in the middle of any evening entertainment, and as such she should be less grumpy over being interrupted.

Brzzt. No picture appeared on the screen, but both audio and video link indicator lights flashed. Crawford was well aware of the fact that the video was sending in his end. The voice coming through the speaker was smooth. You could barely tell age at all.

"Well, well," the woman said, sounding disinterested but vaguely amused. "Oracle. I haven't heard from you in a while."

"Yes, ma'am. It has been a while." He remained professional and calm. "I hope I am not disturbing you."

"Never mind the pleasantries, Oracle. I trust you have important business."

_Well, here goes._

"Yes, ma'am. I have information regarding the Takatori operations."

There was a brief pause at the other end. She sounded a touch more serious. "Indeed, Oracle?"

Crawford flashed a confident smile to the video camera. "I have a reason to expect that a rival team will interfere with our plans in the near future."

"Indeed."

At last, the video feed was switched on. A distinguished elderly woman appeared on the screen. She gave the impression of strict professionalism even with her large, ethereal blue eyes that would have, under different circumstances, reminded Crawford of a doll.

As it was, Crawford knew better than to associate this woman with a child's toy. He dipped his head to a polite, respectful greeting.

She looked thoroughly displeased. "You are aware that the Takatori operation files are top secret. You do not have clearance." She narrowed her eyes. "Anymore."

Crawford dipped his head to acknowledge. "I understand. But I have new information about Mamoru Takatori."

She looked even more peevish than normal. "Why would I be interested in Mamoru Takatori? His disappearance was unfortunate for the family, but hardly significant for us."

"I have reason to suspect that we were wrong in dismissing his kidnapping so quickly. Kritiker took him."

"Kritiker? Why would they have an interest in the Takatori child? And why the ransom demand? It's not how they normally operate."

"I believe they staged the kidnapping in order to gain access to him," Crawford provided coolly. "Mamoru will emerge from the shadows. Kritiker plots to assassinate the entire Takatori family so that their faithful agent Mamoru can take over the business."

She frowned. "When?"

"The plans are already in motion, ma'am."

He promised it easily. The plans were his. He had foreseen that particular future in Mamoru Takatori's eyes a long time ago.

Crawford had had his reasons to help it along.

Her eyes were barely visible from under her crumpled brows. "You think Kritiker is so well informed?"

Crawford gave a non-committal sound. "That's what my visions indicate, ma'am. I believe there is more I could see." He paused meaningfully. "It would be useful if I would be permitted to study these visions in some comfortable, secure location. Perhaps in Japan."

She evaluated him in silence for a long minute. Crawford waited.

"It is best that we investigate this," she said curtly. "You are expected to report in Rosenkreuz."

Crawford pretended to be honestly surprised. "Not Japan, ma'am?"

"Not Japan." She pursed her lips. "Not yet. Rosenkreuz is closer to your location."

It was an excuse. They wanted to test him. Ensure that he was telling them the truth, before they sent him to where he apparently wanted to go.

Exactly as Crawford had planned. Rosenkreuz was precisely where Crawford wanted them to send him.

"As you wish, ma'am."

She nodded shortly, and then the screen went dead. Crawford closed the lid of his laptop. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. He had succeeded in getting his foot in through the door.

Keeping the foot intact and attached to the rest of his body would be his next concern.

Crawford leaned back on the couch.

"Well, Schuldig," he murmured. "I'm coming."

* * *

The tall man stood in front of the dusty window in the darkness, unblinking, unmoving. His short grey hair hovered about every which way, surrounding his face like a messy halo. His face was pale and limp. The tortured, haunted look was complemented by tears crawling down his cheeks.

_»Ssh, my love.»_ The telepath's smooth voice rippled through the darkness. _»It will be all right.»_

But all words were spent, dried up and quenched like the fire he had once felt for that voice.

_»Oh, do cheer up, Dmitri. Your boy is coming home. Don't tell me you haven't missed him?»_

Nothing but a weary sigh floated in the hollow silence of the dark chamber. It was carried through the mind link all the way to the other side of the Rosenkreuz institute, into the head supervisor's private rooms. There, Adelbert Dietrich was standing in front of the window, staring out. Like they were looking at each other.

Their bodies were in their own rooms, but their minds were but a breath apart.

"Can you imagine what they could become, Dmitri?" Excitement spilled over into the telepath's voice.

His voice was carried via the link over into the dark chamber in the precognitive department. The dark figure didn't move. Dmitri's liquid eyes were clouded and distant.

"Yes." The quiet words were haunted by many a tomorrow. "I can."

All those tomorrows played in a vision of two faces — one with the look of hunger and pleasure, the other more subdued, distracted.

"But it doesn't please you," whispered Dietrich. He raised his hand and placed his fingertips carefully on the glass, drawing a pattern like he was caressing an invisible cheek. "You regret what happened between us."

No response.

"He is stronger than you, Dmitri. And he has grown powerful. Just like you predicted."

Dmitri pursed his lips. Dietrich tilted his head, his attention drawn to another set of thoughts in his partner's mind. He crawled in deeper and browsed the memories, examining and comparing, shifting between Dmitri's thoughts and visions as though they were but two case folders.

There was no resistance.

Dietrich shook his head. "That just proves that they are as powerful as I hoped."

"Perhaps _too_ powerful." The precognitive's voice was toneless.

Dietrich's lips curved to a smile. "Oh, don't worry, Dmitri," he whispered. "Everything is under control."

The silence dragged on.

Then, "It can never work." Dmitri's voice was cold like the arctic wind, and growing stronger. Stronger. "They will never surrender to you." Something was coming alive in his eyes. Defiance. Almost anger.

"Ah... Dmitri, here's the difference between precognitives and telepaths..." A chilling laughter drifted out. "Telepaths change their minds." His voice softened. "Or has the future disappeared, my love?"

Only the sound of Dmitri's laboured breathing filled the dark chamber. Defiance ebbed away with another weary sigh.

Dietrich started to chuckle — an evil, cold ripple of hard choppy sounds. "The plan hasn't failed." His voice was hoarse with hunger. "I've simply had to adjust it. You'll see."

Nothing but a cold, cold quiet followed.

Dietrich's eyes hardened. His fingers fanned out on the glass. He stood with his gaze fixed on the horizon — far above and past the rooftops of Rosenkreuz.

"Keep your eyes on the future, Counsellor," the telepath whispered.

Dmitri closed his eyes. The sigh he kept within was never released.

"Always, Composer." He barely recognised the words that drifted from between his lips. "Always."


	8. Enough Games

**- MINDS -**

**Chapter Three  
:: enough games ::**

The sitting room of the head supervisor of Rosenkreuz was bathed in a comfortable half-light. A man in a black uniform occupied an armchair near the fireplace. His jacket was hanging loosely off his shoulders. The first few buttons of his shirt were open and a glass of red wine was sitting on the small table nearby, well in his reach. He was alone, apparently immersed in a report, when there was a light knock at the door. He sent a careless, good-natured telepathic chuckle along with the permission to enter.

Crawford stepped inside. He was wearing a long dark overcoat. He flicked the door closed with an easy motion of one hand.

"Ah, Oracle," murmured Adelbert Dietrich without raising his eyes from the report he was perusing. "Coming to me directly from the car?" He clicked his tongue. "You know I always keep a few rooms ready for you."

"Passing by my rooms would have been a useless gesture suggesting false disinterest, Herr Dietrich. You would have seen right through it." Crawford removed his gloves one finger at a time while walking. "You prefer honesty, so what would be the point?"

Dietrich raised his eyes from the report slowly, his grey eyes passing over the length of Crawford's body from the boots, up along the long coat, all the way to the face. A smile tugged at one corner of his mouth.

"Perhaps you would have liked to avoid giving the impression of urgency," he suggested.

"And deny you the pleasure of gloating, Herr Dietrich?" Crawford inquired coolly. He swept around on his heels in front of the couch and took a seat, all in one smooth motion. He tilted his head, his eyes challenging Dietrich to reproach him on his boldness to sit without asking for permission. "Hardly worth the trouble. I prefer not to waste time."

Dietrich's gaze dropped and climbed one more time over Crawford's figure. He did not reply.

"You know why I am here, Herr Dietrich." Crawford slapped the gloves on top of his knee and eased into a comfortable position, one leg tossed over the other. "You have been expecting me. Shall we go directly to business?"

Dietrich cocked an eyebrow. "Business? What business do we have, Oracle? As I recall, you were dismissed from project Schwarz after the recent..." His lips twitched to a smirk. "...camping incident."

Unblinking, Crawford held his gaze. "We still have a common interest, Herr Dietrich. Don't we?"

Dietrich pursed his lips. He lowered the report from his hands and reached for his wine glass. He said nothing at all as he took a slow sip.

There was a touch of accusation in the curve of Crawford's eyebrow. "You have him, Herr Dietrich." It was not a question.

Dietrich lowered the wine glass. He supported his elbow on the armrest of his chair and rolled his wrist in slow circles, causing the red liquid to swirl around in the glass. He still wouldn't say anything.

"Schuldig is alive. Here. With you."

"You think so?"

"You wanted him back." Crawford's voice carried the certainty of a man who was about to state that the world would keep turning for another day. "I assume that there was a special type of biokinetic with the retrieval team. One who could keep him alive. In stasis, perhaps. You told them to revive him and bring him to you. You knew I wouldn't see it before my talent settled again after the head trauma."

"Quite a theory, Oracle." But Dietrich didn't deny any of it.

The keen gold pieces were reduced to thin slits. "Maybe you were the one who orchestrated his supposed execution in the first place."

"You know that the orders to terminate him came from Colonel Amlisch."

"But they never told me who it was that foresaw the mind lock. It would only make sense that it was Herr Komarov, given my relationship with him. Perhaps you tipped off the authorities."

"Would I do such a thing?" Dietrich gave a wicked, unconvincing smile that was as good as a confession.

The keen gold pieces from across the coffee table demanded answers. It was Crawford's turn to say nothing. Dietrich kept him waiting, but at last, the telepath began to laugh.

"Oh, very well!" Dietrich cocked his head to the side like a curious canine, his eyes twinkling. "But tell me... did you ever consider that even if I had your telepath, perhaps I let you believe that he was dead because I wanted you out of my project? Once upon a time, you swore to serve me, but you have not kept your word."

Crawford's fingers clenched to grip the gloves, but the rest of his body remained rigid. "I beg to differ, Herr Dietrich," he said firmly. "I have kept all your secrets. And it's because of me that project Schwarz ever got the Elders' attention."

"But you took my telepath," Dietrich reminded him. "You whisked him away on an adventure and made sure he never wanted to look back."

"Excuse me, Herr Dietrich, but you pushed him into my arms. Had you treated him better, you would never have needed to worry about his loyalty." Crawford narrowed his eyes. "Let's stop wasting time. I am here to strike a bargain."

"Ah. And what do you have to bargain with?"

"Your freedom, Herr Dietrich."

Dietrich narrowed his eyes. He took another sip of wine. Slowly.

A low, dark voice delivered the rest of Crawford's argument deliberately. "I have seen the Elders' plan. I know what you want. And I know you'll need me."

"Careful, silver tongue," Dietrich retorted. "You have offered me plenty of half-seen futures before. But I've seen through the smoke and past the mirrors. I'm not interested in your lies."

"This is no lie and you know it, Herr Dietrich. You have always known what they are up to." Crawford executed a well-placed dramatic pause. "They are planning to summon a demon."

"A demon?" Dietrich chuckled. "You have quite an imagination."

"One who can foresee the future needs no imagination to know how the story ends, Herr Dietrich. I have spent years preparing the world for the new order, as they call it. I have seen the Elders' Kingdom. I never liked it much." Crawford shook his head. "Now that I have seen the face of their master, I like it even less."

Suddenly, a silver sparkle lit Dietrich's eyes. He leaned forward. The movement was barely noticeable, but it gave him away. He was excited.

Eager, even.

"You have seen it?" Dietrich prompted.

Crawford gave a measured, calm nod.

Dietrich set his glass on the table. He swept the folder off his lap. It fell on the floor and the documents scattered, but Dietrich didn't seem to mind. He looked like he might have been about to stand up, but some shred of self control kept him on his seat. His eyes were alive with a dark, dark fever.

"You have seen but a ghost," he said. "No, Oracle. It is not a demon."

"I heard them call its name."

Dietrich clicked his tongue. "Name... phaugh! Shapes and shadows! Names are but symbols to help our minds understand that which we cannot touch. You know this. No, it's not a demon, Oracle. The Elders plan to awaken a power so great that it can level all mankind." He gave his speech earnestly, but immediately after, he challenged the validity of the statement with a soft chuckle, "So they say."

"You believe it, Herr Dietrich," Crawford returned. "You want to awaken this power yourself, and you think you can use Schuldig to do it."

Dietrich leaned back in his seat again. His body relaxed. "We have danced this dance before, Oracle," he murmured. "But all right. Entertain me with your ideas."

Crawford measured his opponent for a lengthy minute.

"You need him, because you want to channel not only a great deal of power, but also a great deal of minds. You want to combine the different types of psychic power, and in order to do that, you need different talents. A telepath and a telekinetic will unite the mental and the physical. But you need someone to channel the most elusive element. You need someone with the gift of reaching through time and space." Crawford cocked an eyebrow. "You need a precognitive."

"A precognitive?" Dietrich chuckled. "You have a high opinion of your precious gift of foresight, Oracle. I assure you... any clairvoyant will do."

"Perhaps. But you prefer one who can see the future." Crawford picked an imaginary dust ball off his knee. "To give the blade a sharper edge."

Dietrich pursed his lips. Again, he did not speak to neither deny nor to confirm.

"You sold project Schwarz to the Elders as a development programme for a superior psychically linked team, but what you really wanted to do was to create a channel." Crawford's voice lowered to a velvet whisper. "You wanted to create a weapon you could use to harness the power of hell."

"The power of hell..." Dietrich chuckled quietly. "If that's what you prefer to call it. Ah, but I read you well." Dietrich's eyes gleamed from under his dark eyebrows. "You are not convinced. Do you not believe in heaven and hell?"

Crawford dismissed the suggestion with a shake of the head. "I have never seen the work of God or the devil on earth, Herr Dietrich. Why should I believe in their less corporeal manifestations?"

"Not believing in God or the devil does not prevent you from believing in the netherworld. Surely you agree that there must be something more?"

"Perhaps, Herr Dietrich. But I have not yet seen it."

"Not seen it? You can see through time, I can see through men's minds. Some people would call these gifts proof."

"Some people are fools," Crawford observed. His unblinking stare held Dietrich's eyes. "And I do not believe you are a fool any more than I am, Herr Dietrich."

Dietrich leaned back in his seat and began to laugh quietly. "Oh, very good, Oracle... you are close." He drew one long finger over his smiling lips. "Now tell me why I shouldn't kill you."

"You must have anticipated that I would discover the truth, Herr Dietrich. If you really wanted to get rid of me, you would have killed me a long time ago. The question is..." Crawford narrowed his eyes. "Why haven't you?"

Dietrich picked up the wine glass. He kept up the infuriating, mysterious smile. He was obviously not about to answer.

Crawford dropped his gloves on the couch. He stood. Never moving his dead gaze from Dietrich, he began to unbutton his long overcoat. The master telepath's gaze fell along the row of buttons at the same pace with Crawford's shapely fingers. The precognitive swept the coat off his shoulders and dropped it on the couch, revealing the black business suit underneath.

"What did you do to him, Herr Dietrich?" Crawford asked with his deep, rich voice that pulled Dietrich's attention as certainly as every confident motion of his body. He was like a bird of prey, his unblinking golden eyes fixed on his target. "You knew I would come eventually."

Dietrich clicked his tongue. "I speculated." He raised his wine glass to his lips and smiled around the edge. "I am shocked to find that you really would put yourself at risk for him."

"For him?" Crawford dismissed the suggestion with a sound that only barely qualified for a laugh. "You misunderstand me, Herr Dietrich." He stuck his other hand inside his jacket. "I'm here, because I want him out of my head."

Dietrich cocked an eyebrow.

"He's here, Herr Dietrich." Crawford tapped his temple with two fingers. "It's very distracting. I can't stop hearing him. I think it's the mind lock, screwing with my head." His eyes narrowed. "Maybe you know how that is."

Dietrich's smile faded. Crawford pulled out his hand from inside his jacket. He was holding a sleek handgun.

Schuldig's gun.

Click. The hammer was cocked. Crawford pointed the gun.

"Where's my telepath, Herr Dietrich?" Crawford's voice was as steady as his aim.

Dietrich's eyes lingered on the gun. He did not answer.

"Enough games, Herr Dietrich. You have my telepath. You wanted me here. So I'm here. You want something from us. Tell me what it is."

Dietrich frowned. "Brave words from a fallen soldier," he said darkly. His gaze crawled up from the gun to Crawford's face. "This isn't like you, Oracle," he whispered. "You would destroy your future? Never."

"Maybe not." Crawford fixed his aim a bit higher. Right in between Dietrich's eyes. "But you know Schuldig was never as fond of thinking ahead."

Dietrich narrowed his eyes. Seconds ticked slowly by as the two men measured one another over the barrel of the gun. Crawford's face remained flat. He waited for the master telepath to take the bait. His entire bluff was based on the assumption that whatever Dietrich had done to Schuldig, it did not involve gaining complete access to Schuldig's mind. So Dietrich wouldn't know whether Crawford was telling him the truth. Whether it was Crawford or Schuldig who had the control of the gun.

After two full minutes, Dietrich put the wine glass on the table and stood up.

"All right, Oracle," he said softly. "I see that this situation upsets you. Perhaps you need a few answers." He gestured toward a bookshelf suggestively.

Crawford lowered the gun. His face remained stoic. He intended to keep it to himself just precisely how much Schuldig really was — or indeed was not — interfering with his thoughts and decisions. He had become used to the telepath's explosive unpredictable self adding the kind of random factor that was useful against enemies like Dietrich: ones who calculated their decisions and planned their actions at least as carefully as Crawford did. But it was a little disconcerting to find that simulating Schuldig was so much easier than he had expected.

Dietrich walked over to the bookshelf and found a latch from behind the row of books. The entire shelf sank into the wall and revealed a dark corridor. Without looking back, Dietrich slipped into the darkness. Crawford stuck the gun back inside his jacket and followed the master telepath through the door. The bookshelf slid back in place. Light switched on automatically. Dietrich was already on the move. Crawford hurried to catch up.

Dietrich led him along the corridor, around a corner and into a small lift. They went down and turned a few more corners, until they found themselves in a brightly lit white corridor that made Crawford flinch.

Dietrich glanced over his shoulder. Crawford ignored the knowing look and kept his hands behind his back and his face stoic. But his mind was swimming with memories. His own and, he realised, perhaps someone else's. He had walked down these kind of corridors not long ago, when he had been treated after the forest incident. But he didn't think he had ever been dragged.

He knew that Schuldig had been, when he had been young.

Perhaps it hadn't been just a bluff, when he had implied that Schuldig was interfering with his thoughts. Crawford flexed his fingers. His skin was crawling. As soon as his car had passed through Rosenkreuz gates, it had been harder to ignore the way he kept seeing the unruly red hair and the mischievous blue eyes from the corner of his eye, like an elusive mirage that faded as soon as he turned to look.

_»Come...»_

Schuldig was here. Somewhere.


	9. Alive

**- MINDS -**

**Chapter Four  
:: alive ::**

Dietrich stopped in front of a door. Crawford stared. There was a bright red letter X drawn on it.

Years. It was years since he had seen a door like it.

Dietrich paused with one hand lingering on the handle of the door. He closed his eyes and inhaled, deep. "You remember well, Oracle," he murmured. "It was another lifetime. Hmm?" He opened his eyes and looked over his shoulder. "You've grown up since then."

Crawford said nothing. He buried all his thoughts deep within. None of them would have been particularly flattering to Dietrich. He didn't think he had had so much growing up to do in the first place.

If the telepath caught the barely contained hostility, he didn't let on. His gaze wandered on Crawford's face. "How are your eyes, Oracle? You don't look or behave like a blind man."

"I'm not."

Crawford wasn't about to discuss this with Dietrich. The man would have access to Eszett records of his physical condition. He probably knew all the details already. Everything else was personal, especially because Crawford's honest answer was that he couldn't always tell whether or not he was physically blind. There were moments, like now, that he believed that he had his normal eyesight back. That everything was as it had been. As it was supposed to be.

But then there were those other moments — he kept the memory of groping through the hazy, twisted shapes of the bottles in the mini-bar locked away deep inside.

Dietrich said nothing, but something in his eyes gave the impression that maybe, just maybe, he knew more than Crawford wanted him to know. Those eyes were the mark of a talented telepath. Those eyes could make you think that he saw every movement of your mind.

Schuldig had the same eyes. Crawford gripped his wrist behind his back. Tight.

Chuckling quietly, Dietrich turned to the door. He gave his fingerprints and showed his eye to the scanner.

Crawford wanted to ask if the red X on the door meant what it had once meant. He wanted to ask if Schuldig was on the other side. But the words were locked behind pursed lips. Though he had these visions and he had come all this way, now as he was standing here facing the proof that he had been right, he found it impossible to believe.

It hurt. Hurt to think that Schuldig really had been here the whole time. Alive.

Dietrich got the door open and slipped inside first. Crawford discovered that his memories of the past had interfered with his expectations — he jolted slightly when he saw that the room on the other side was not dark. It was well lit, and there was no armchair nor a table in the corner like there had been in another small room behind another door marked with an eye-catching red X.

But there _was_ a large window.

Crawford stepped over the threshold. His feet refused to move farther into the room. The world was preparing for a gasp inside his chest. He wanted to look at the window, yet something held him back. It might have been that thing men call fear, if it wasn't that Brad Crawford did not believe in fear. He had transformed fear into motivation, and then he had buried it deep inside, where it had grown roots and bloomed, reaching up to embrace the sky, hungry for more. It had become a purpose — and once upon a time, that purpose had directed his every step.

Then Schuldig had come along, and Crawford had not noticed that something had changed until it was too late. All that noticing had made him feel lost.

And now...

Now he was about to be rediscovered, but like a blindfolded man standing on top of a cliff, he needed to choose whether to listen to the friend who urges him to step forward and take a risk of falling.

_»Come.»_

The call had never rang so loud in his head. It was nearly physical, like something tugging at his hair, wanting him to turn. Perhaps it shouldn't have even mattered whether he looked or not, because his talent worked even when his eyes were closed and gave him glimpses at the periphery of his vision or in impossible angles and at the back of his head, but right now, it mattered whether he turned to look.

He wanted to see Schuldig. With his own eyes.

But...

His fists trembled behind his back. See. He would not see anything with his own eyes again. Suddenly, he wondered what he would see, if he turned? Perhaps nothing but some self-imposed illusion.

Or something Dietrich dreamed up for him. Crawford had learned a long time ago to mistrust reality when he was in the company of this particular telepath.

However, standing here too long would only invite mockery. Crawford decided that it was like removing a bandage. Doing it fast hurt more but it was over quickly. He flicked his eyes toward the window. He meant it to be nothing but a quick glance.

But once he caught the shock of red-orange, his eyes would not move. All his doubts fell away. The world fell away. The gasp in his chest was released in the form of a sigh. He didn't even realise that he started to move. His feet found their way without consulting him. He stopped in front of the window and put his hands against the glass.

"Schuldig," he whispered.

A young man was sitting cross-legged on the floor in the middle of a padded white cell, surrounded by small red-and-white objects Crawford did not register. His attention was completely swallowed by the red-haired creature with a stack of paper in his lap and what appeared to be a red pencil in his hand. The redhead was scribbling away at the topmost blank sheet. He did not look up.

But it was him. He was exactly the way Crawford remembered him. Right down to the concentrated frown and the messy red hair. As though nothing had ever happened. As though he had not been just a bleeding, limp shell in Crawford's hands only a few months ago.

Dietrich appeared next to his shoulder.

"Your theory was quite accurate, Oracle," Dietrich said softly. "After the incident, I had him transported here. It was easy. They wanted the body studied."

"But he's alive."

Dietrich nodded. "He is alive."

Alive. Though he had come here to find Schuldig, it was still a shock. Crawford's fingers ran on the glass, moving with the urge to reach out. To touch that hair. To feel that warmth. He ached for the proof that Schuldig was really there.

Suddenly, the redhead's hand stopped moving. He froze like an animal that had heard a suspicious noise. Crawford responded with instinct.

_»Schuldig?»_

The redhead looked up. The bright blue flashed from under the scowling brows and the next second, the papers were tossed off his lap and he was standing. Schuldig crossed the floor to the window. His eyes had intention and purpose. He was looking right at Crawford.

Crawford held his breath.

Schuldig slammed both hands on the glass. Almost exactly to where Crawford's hands were. Just like they once had. Crawford moved his hands a bit, to place his palms exactly against Schuldig's. Only the glass between them.

"Schuldig... we have got to stop meeting like this," Crawford murmured with a helpless, quiet laugh.

There was no mental contact, but a familiar smile crawled up to twist Schuldig's mouth.

Crawford had not expected the effect that the smile had on him. Everything disappeared in his head. He had to get inside. He hurried over to the door. He didn't even worry about whether or not Dietrich would let him go into the cell. He did not worry about whether the door was locked. It should have been, but it wasn't. Crawford swung it open and stepped in. There was the rustling sound of paper crushing under his heel, but he didn't register it. Only one thing in that room registered.

"Schuldig."

Schuldig turned. And there he was, only a few steps away. His every slender limb was as perfect as Crawford remembered. Not a flaw on his body. Not a flaw on his face.

Not a flaw in his crooked smile.

Crawford crossed the distance with a few quick leaps, scooped Schuldig's head in the cradle of his hands and dived in for a fierce kiss. The warm lips against his own gave him a thrill. His fingers found a firm grip of luxurious red hair.

Red fire. That was Schuldig — fire.

Finally back.

He devoured Schuldig's mouth like a starved man. He expected the fire to return the kiss. He expected flames in his brain, flames so hot that they would burn away the pain inside.

But the smiling lips froze. Schuldig didn't melt into the kiss. There was a tiny gasp and then nothing at all. Schuldig did not struggle or pull away. But neither did he respond to the kiss.

Crawford let out a shocked breath. With his mouth open, he pulled back. He searched those confused blue eyes. The smile was gone. Nothing but distance remained. Nothing there. Nothing at all.

And that's when he realised how odd it was that he hadn't heard Schuldig in all this time. It was quiet in his head.

Too quiet.

"Schuldig?" Crawford whispered.

No response. Schuldig's lips were slightly parted, his expression confused. His face lacked all emotion. The silence was too large. Infinite. The vacancy in Crawford's head was like a black hole, wanting to swallow his very soul.

Schuldig was still missing.

"You love him well, Oracle," whispered Dietrich from behind him. "I'm sorry he's not here to appreciate it."

Every single word was like a knife stabbed into Crawford's guts. An ugly lump of steel formed at the pit of his stomach. He could not bring himself to release his death grip of Schuldig's hair. His brain wanted to refuse to process reality altogether.

The red-haired *thing* in his hands did not react at all. He was placid and quiet and everything else that Schuldig never was.

"What did you do to him?" Crawford spat the words from between his teeth.

"Ssh, Oracle."

Dietrich waded through the rustling sea of paper. He stopped somewhere behind Crawford's right shoulder. Crawford felt his presence. It took all his self control not to turn and put a fist into that undoubtedly smug face.

"In order for you to believe that he was dead, he needed to be dead. He had to pass that threshold."

Crawford blinked at Schuldig's expressionless face. A chill went through him. He let go and stepped back warily. The redhead kept staring. Like a statue.

Or like a dead man.

Crawford glared over his shoulder. "What are you saying?"

Dietrich's keen, intent eyes gleamed with a silver glimmer in the bright light of the cell. He placed his hand on Crawford's shoulder. Instinct made Crawford flinch, but he didn't pull away.

"Death cannot be reversed, but you know that there is a short window of opportunity to revive the body after it has stopped functioning. Surely you have researched the subject."

"The brain cells begin to die quickly. There wouldn't have been much time to revive him. I didn't think they would even try."

"And you believed that if they had, you would have known." Dietrich spoke the truth Crawford would not have admitted out loud. "But you were compromised." Dietrich gripped Crawford's shoulder tighter.

It added insult to injury. Crawford swept Dietrich's hand off his shoulder with an angry gesture.

"So what went wrong, Herr Dietrich?" he demanded. "If you revived him, why is he like this? He doesn't look like he even understands that we're talking about him. Was his brain damaged?"

Dietrich turned to examine the pale, silent red-haired creature that was beginning to make Crawford feel sick.

"Nothing went wrong, Oracle," he said softly. "He was simply reset."

Crawford balled his hands to fists at his sides. It took superhuman effort not to draw the gun again and put a bullet through Dietrich's head. He spat out the word, "Reset?"

Dietrich's lips twitched. "Returned to original settings, as it were," he provided. "You like to think of human existence as a mechanism, so I'll put this in terms you'll understand. Our bodies link all aspects of our essence. When that link is broken..." He chuckled. "Can you imagine what happens when a telepath's energy is released and all cohesion disappears? The onset of death has certain effects on the spirit, ah, the soul... whatever you choose to call that spark that makes us what we are."

Despite everything he had seen and experienced, Crawford had always been reluctant to believe in some non-corporeal manifestation of a person — this thing they called soul. The mind and the body were one, and based on his research, it made sense to assume that the brain was the true source of all thought. Nothing but impulses, cells and neurons, just information stored in living tissue. If you successfully revived all necessary parts of the brain, a person's personality and memories should remain unchanged.

Dietrich's suggestion sounded like fantasy.

But it was hard to argue with the evidence of his own eyes. Something _was_ clearly missing. If it wasn't soul, it was a bunch of brain cells somewhere. Schuldig was standing right there. Breathing. Moving. Yet he wasn't there.

However, this wasn't the first time Crawford had seen Schuldig so lost that he didn't remember who he was. Crawford was thinking about the way Schuldig had walked to the glass to meet him. He was thinking about the smile.

"He recognised me. He's a telepath, Herr Dietrich. He is just confused."

"Ah, do forgive me for the joke, Oracle, I could not resist," Dietrich said softly. "But no. He did not recognise you."

"Then..."

Dietrich gave a modest smile. "To function, he needs some... external support," he provided.

Crawford felt sick. He took another step back.

"You're working him like a puppet, Herr Dietrich," he whispered.

It wasn't a question. He didn't need to ask to understand that what he had just kissed was nothing but a hollow shell directed by the power of Dietrich's mind. Dietrich's lips pulled to a malicious smile.

One of Crawford's worst nightmares was quickly becoming a reality.


	10. Play Along

**- MINDS -**

**Chapter Five  
:: play along ::**

Crawford took another step back from the red-haired *thing* he had once called his partner, but he kept questioning the facts that appeared to be staring at him right in the eyes. It couldn't end this way. Schuldig and Schuldig's leering smirk waited for him in the future. Schuldig was *not* gone.

Not gone.

"Hush, Oracle. Of course he's not gone."

Crawford realised that his thoughts were probably bleeding out like blood from a fresh wound. He tried to focus, to put his thoughts back in order.

But the pair of blank blue pools were two gaping holes in his chest.

"You must realise that if there was nothing left of his mind, I couldn't animate his body. I'm not a telekinetic who can make a dead body dance." Dietrich tracked one long finger slowly over his lips. "More's the pity."

All words disappeared into the vacuum in Crawford's head. Where Schuldig had used to be.

"Don't worry, Oracle. I plan to restore him," the devil went on. "I've been working on him ever since the incident. I've made some progress while you were busy getting your head together. He is not completely dependent on me. Look." Dietrich waved his hand to Schuldig. "Go on, my pet. You may continue."

Without a word, Schuldig walked back to his stack of paper. He sat down, picked up the paper and the red pen and continued to write. Crawford couldn't stand to look at him. The need to focus on something else — anything else — got him to finally register the small red-and-white objects scattered everywhere. Small animals and various other items folded from paper.

Origami. He was standing in an ocean of paper sculptures.

Crawford crouched to pick up a paper crane. He turned it around in his hands and discovered that it was scribbled full of red text. The handwriting was messy and the contents... uncoordinated, unstructured phrases that you might almost think were linked, but weren't. He couldn't even tell where one thought started and another one ended. He turned to Schuldig again. The redhead was wearing the concentrated frown again. He studied the shape of each letter like he was delicately crafting a fine piece of art.

"What is he doing, Herr Dietrich?"

Dietrich's smile faded. He delayed before answering, which was an answer in itself. He wasn't sure.

"He returns to this every time I leave him on standby," Dietrich replied at length. "I gave him the pen and the papers, because I was hoping he would produce something that would give me insight to what's going on in his mind." Dietrich pursed his lips. "I'd like to think that he's writing down every thought he hears, but if that's the case, he's picking up something I cannot. My theory is that he's writing memories as well as thoughts. Writing down lives, if you will. But I have no explanation for the paper folding."

Crawford fingered the paper figure in his hand. Dietrich's words triggered a memory. _Writing down lives._ He crushed the paper crane in his fist. "Paper doll lives," he whispered.

Dietrich cocked an eyebrow. "Hmm?"

Crawford stood up and dusted off his trousers. He did not elaborate. It was none of Dietrich's business. During an information gathering mission, Schuldig had once worked on a man who liked to meditate by folding paper. Schuldig had sat with him for hours, poking around his thoughts to find the information they needed. The experience had had a profound impact on Schuldig. The idea of sculpting stories from paper had haunted him. Schuldig had talked about the man's dreams and fears at length and then went on to compare himself to a paper doll. A thin blank mould that could be transformed by dressing it with different clothes.

Or with different lives.

Crawford searched Schuldig's face. His telepath was still in there. He clung onto that belief like he had clung onto the telepath's lifeless body in the forest.

"You said you plan to restore him." Crawford narrowed his eyes. "What does that mean?"

"You want to know if he'll be the same or am I planning on some modifications?" Dietrich chuckled. "That depends on you. I may even give him back to you..." The smile was audible in his voice. "...if you'll play along."

Crawford's fists trembled with the sudden urge to clock the man. "What do you want from me, Herr Dietrich?" He had come here knowing that he would have to bargain with this demon. He had thought he was prepared to behave professionally.

But seeing the zombie that had once been living fire in his bed and thinking of yielding to the man who had made him so — professional behaviour would have been too much to ask.

"We'll get to that." Dietrich's voice was hungry. "Ah... does it hurt, Oracle?" he whispered. "Which hurts more — to look at him like this... or to know that it was your fault?"

An acid denial was on Crawford's tongue immediately. _Not my fault._ But his lips froze. He remembered one careless joke from Schuldig, years ago.

_"I'll make sure to say something rude. Because I know it'll be your fault."_

_"My fault?"_

_"If I die, it'll be because you'll have failed to prevent it."_

Saying it wasn't his fault was like the sore defence of an angry child, protesting to the fates because he had hurt his knee while falling down the stairs due to a careless step. This wasn't his fault, but he *had* failed. He had not foreseen this. Crawford's precognitive pride was damaged.

He had _failed._

Ah, but Crawford would *not* accept blame for all of this.

"You were the one who did this to him, Herr Dietrich. Not I," he said from between his teeth. "Why? What use is he to you like this?"

It didn't make sense. Schuldig had not been a threat to Dietrich. If anything, he had been a stolen asset. Crawford was the threat. Crawford and Dietrich had existed in something of an uncomfortable equilibrium. Tolerating one another's continued existence, pretending to get along, keeping their contact to a bare minimum while using one another to get to their ultimate goals.

Crawford intended to eventually find a way to destroy Dietrich along with the masters he served and he had no doubt Dietrich suspected it. But if Dietrich had decided to get rid of the threat, why hurt _Schuldig_? Why not just kill Crawford?

"So quick to place blame," Dietrich said gently. "You have it all wrong. You should be thanking me. If I didn't step in, he might be gone altogether. Colonel Amlisch probably saw the mind lock himself. He has kept his eyes trained on you all these years. Don't tell me you didn't know that he has been looking for an excuse to execute your telepath all along?"

Crawford wasn't convinced he should believe a word. But he had to admit, "I know Colonel Amlisch has never trusted Schuldig."

"That's an understatement. Colonel Amlisch has always feared him. Schuldig is not just any telepath. You know that."

"He was under control."

"Do you think that matters to *them*?" Dietrich hissed. Bitterness bled into his voice. "Do you think that they've ever stopped doubting? Schuldig knows how to take the form of sheep, but he'll never really be part of the flock, and they know it. You've done a good job convincing them that you can be seduced by power, but one like him... one who is so attracted to pleasure... his mind in a constant state of flux... how could they ever be sure of his loyalty?"

The paper crane in Crawford's fist made a crunching sound as he tightened his grip. He wanted to look away from the shaggy red mop, but he couldn't. He didn't want to say the words, but they fell from his lips without waiting for permission.

"I was sure."

A long, deep silence followed. Dietrich did not respond. From the sounds of it, he didn't even breathe. Crawford wished that his gift would have kicked in, shown him the future he wanted to see. The future in which he would put a bullet in Dietrich's head.

In all his enemies' heads. He didn't trust a word out of Dietrich's mouth, but he didn't have to hear it from Dietrich to know what the Elders' thought about Schuldig. The execution had proven it.

Still...

"Excuses, Herr Dietrich," Crawford whispered. "You killed him. Whether Colonel Amlisch saw it for himself is irrelevant. You did nothing to stop this. You might as well have pulled the trigger yourself."

"So dramatic, Oracle. The situation was always under control. The entire team was working under my orders. Schuldig was never in any danger."

"Then what do you call this?" Crawford gestured toward Schuldig. "Giving a break to his brain?"

Dietrich clicked his tongue. "Sometimes you have to take risks to get what you want. Time is a fickle ally. I shouldn't have to tell you this, Oracle. You have to play with the cards you get... and things don't always work out according to plan." Dietrich bared his teeth in what was more a grimace than a smile. "Do they?"

Crawford's eyes followed the movements of Schuldig's hand. Powerful, focused motions, reminiscent of the way the telepath moved during missions — but more jagged, like a robot trying to reproduce a motion that wasn't within its physical capabilities. Familiar, yet so foreign.

No. Things did not always work out according to plan. Crawford's entire body felt sore and heavy and reluctant. All that was left was the nagging question, answer to which kept eluding him.

Why?

"Don't you see, Oracle?" the devil's voice whispered. Hoarse with thirst. "I have always seen through you. I know that Brad Crawford will never be owned by another man. Not unless he has no other choice."

"Get to the point, Herr Dietrich." Crawford's mouth was dry. His heart was hammering. He remembered their dance back in Rosenkreuz. He was not looking forward to repeating the steps.

"All right, Oracle." Dietrich's voice was like a silky caress. "Let's get to the point. I saw an opportunity and I took it. He is mine now. You have always been right about two things. I do want to use him to channel minds, and I wanted to create a powerful, psychically linked team."

"I know, Herr Dietrich." The reminder was sharp, impatient. Sometimes, even the guardian of eternity grows tired of waiting. "I built that team for you."

"You?" Dietrich began to laugh. "Oh, Oracle! Such arrogance... how I have missed this! Ah, but no, Oracle. No. Team leaders are not the ones who build teams. Telepaths are."

"My team. My telepath."

Dietrich's upper lip curled. With anger — until the edged line of his mouth mellowed to a malicious smile.

"How ungrateful of you, Oracle. You might have brought all the pieces of the puzzle together, but it was not you who made them click. You did not carry Team Schwarz. Just like it was not your mentor who carried Team Schatten. Oh... you precognitives." He sounded bitter. "You are all the same. You don't appreciate the price we pay to satisfy your lust."

Crawford said nothing. He would not have chosen the word 'lust' to describe the feelings he imagined had guided Dmitri Komarov's actions when he had created his team, but he chose not to argue with the head supervisor. The shadow behind him hovered closer. So close that Crawford could sense Dietrich's body heat.

Too close.

"I was Dmitri's telepath," whispered the smooth voice. "He used me to compose the most powerful team in the entire Order. Even after all these years, they are still there... inside me. Your telepath has told you how it is for us. Everything we touch becomes ours. I've whored out my mind for his purposes... and how did he repay me?"

A slender hand slipped over a pair of strong, broad shoulders. Slowly, slowly, the long fingers formed patterns along the sharp cut of the expensive black suit. Crawford turned his head a little to observe every motion of that hand with a cold, emotionless expression on his chiselled features.

A pair of glistening grey eyes and an evil smirk leaned in closer. The smooth voice lowered to an ominous whisper. "He never trusted me," Dietrich murmured. "Will you make the same mistake, Oracle?"

"You expect me to trust you, Herr Dietrich?" Crawford inquired. "After all the lies and the games? You didn't contact me to call me here or even to tell me that Schuldig was alive. You did not as much as send me a note after I was dismissed from project Schwarz."

"Had you known that he's alive, they would have found out. Besides, I wouldn't want to be caught messaging you. Surely you cannot begrudge me a little self preservation? I knew your visions would eventually lead you here."

A weak defence. The man had just wanted to relish in Crawford's pain. Crawford shook his head. "Even if I believed you, why would I trust you? You're blackmailing me."

"Am I really?" Dietrich chuckled. "To do that, I should have something you really want. Do I have something you want? You said you didn't come here for him. You said you wanted him out of your head. Then what do you want me to do for you? Return him to you — or break the link?"

"I will need him for my mission in Japan."

"Your mission?"

"Team Schwarz will be sent to Japan. And I will be part of that team."

"Ah, but not unless I help you." A malicious chuckle accompanied the brush of Dietrich's long fingers over Crawford's temple, shifting a few strands of black hair. "You'll do what I tell you, if you want to restore him."

Crawford couldn't take his eyes off the flash of red. His hands remembered the warmth of a limber, toned body.

Remembered too well.

His lips were frozen. Like his heart.

"That's better. You'll start by answering a few questions," Dietrich said darkly. "You said that you hear him. What do you hear? Do you hear him now?"

A long moment passed. Since he had left Rosenkreuz behind, no man ever made Brad Crawford struggle, but it took effort not to pull the gun. If he had hated Dietrich before for everything the man had ever done to him, or done to Schuldig, now his wrath knew no bounds.

His response came reluctantly. "I heard him call me. I've kept hearing him ever since I returned to the field."

A doubt nagged. Was it really Schuldig calling him? Or had it been his own imagination all along? Worse yet — might it have been Dietrich, somehow manipulating his connection to Schuldig?

"Call you? What does he say?"

"Come. Over and over."

"Nothing else?"

"Sometimes other things." Private things. "Commentary on my thoughts. But no real conversations."

"I see."

The rustling sound betrayed Dietrich's movements behind Crawford's back. Dietrich's lips touched Crawford's neck. He smiled, like he was tasting a delicacy. Crawford endured the proximity of the beast's body behind him. He was no longer the frightened youngling who had flinched at first contact of Dietrich's hungry mouth. This exercise was a familiar dance. Crawford knew his part. Stand still and wait.

Wait for the monster to make his move.

"It's not a constant presence, then?" Dietrich's voice was silky and smooth, soft like the lips that ghosted over Crawford's neck.

"No, Herr Dietrich. Not as such. But sometimes..." Crawford almost swallowed his voice involuntarily. "Sometimes it's like he's there."

"I hope you're not lying to me, Oracle," Dietrich whispered in Crawford's ear. "That would jeopardise the accuracy of my analysis."

"What does it matter? Why do you need this information, Herr Dietrich? You don't need me for reviving him." He narrowed his eyes. "Do you?"

"If I am to recover the exact configuration you want me to, I need to understand what the link has done to the both of you. So you should be very... _very_ cooperative, Oracle."

Crawford stared at the shell of the man who had once been his partner. His partner. In more ways than one.

Crawford's mouth formed a tight line. He turned only just enough to meet Dietrich's eyes from over his shoulder. Their faces were so close that they were almost touching. Crawford's unblinking eyes held Dietrich's.

"Watch your step, Herr Dietrich," he warned the telepath. "You still need me for that weapon you're planning to build. In fact..." Crawford cocked an eyebrow. "We need each other."

"Mm." Dietrich smiled around every word. "But the difference is that you need me more. I can always replace you."

"Perhaps you need me less, but you want me more," Crawford shot back. He swept Dietrich's hand off his shoulder and turned around fully. His face was hard and unforgiving. "I told you that I came here to strike a bargain. I have terms. If you want me to serve the Elders' heads to you, you need to make it worth my while."

A silence fell. The only sound was the soft rustling of the red pen on paper from where Schuldig was sitting, decidedly oblivious to the clash of wills going on nearby. Crawford and Dietrich measured one another like two predators contemplating whether to try to sink their claws in each other's flesh. The tension was tangible, ready to erupt, but —

"Gently with those egos," said a dry male voice from the door. "You might hurt yourselves."

Crawford looked up in surprise. Dietrich glared from over his shoulder. Dmitri Komarov's dark, deep-set eyes darted from one psychic to the other while stepping into the cell and closing the door behind him.

A smile tried to surface on Crawford's lips. Despite everything, seeing the older precognitive brought a wave of warmth. Like reinforcements had just arrived.

"Herr Komarov," Crawford greeted his former mentor, lowering his head for a polite bow.

The man dismissed the pleasantries without as much as a nod. His feet rustled through folded paper with measured steps, as though every single crushed paper figure was the result of a carefully meditated sequence executed with perfect precision. Like Dietrich, he, too, was wearing a black uniform. A Sigma uniform.

That was unusual. Crawford had never seen him wearing anything other than Rosenkreuz academy staff uniform.

"The deal he is about to suggest to you is very simple, Oracle," Komarov said. "You anchored Schuldig's mind once. Adelbert is about to ask you to do it again to recover Schuldig's identity."

Crawford narrowed his eyes.

As if Komarov read his mind. "Yes, Oracle, there is a catch." His dark eyes darted to Dietrich. "The price of retrieving Schuldig is nothing less than your soul."

"Oh, so dramatic, Dmitri," Dietrich drawled with a lazy wave of one hand. "I only want a little piece. A taster, really..."

"What makes you think I would ever agree to this?" Crawford snapped. "If you're asking me to give up my life for Schuldig —"

"Oh, phaugh!" Dietrich barked out a choppy laugh. "I assure you, I want the both of you alive and well. Haven't I already proven that a hundred times over? I've not killed you yet. And you know I've had the opportunity. Now..." He tapped his temple with two fingers. "I could _make_ you help me, but I much rather have you volunteering. I thought you might feel a little more motivated to do that now that you've had a taste of life without your telepath... without your team... Don't you miss your team, Oracle?"

"You could give Schwarz back to me," Crawford concluded. "You could arrange the assignment in Japan." He nodded toward the redhead. "You could restore Schuldig..." He shook his head. "All this, for free?" His voice betrayed his complete mistrust in the idea. "What's the catch, Herr Dietrich? If you only want my help, why all this manipulation?"

"All these questions!" Dietrich exclaimed. "Does it matter, whatever I say? You'll never believe a word out of my mouth."

"Had you been honest with me, maybe I would trust you."

At this, the master telepath began to laugh. "You? Trust another human being?" He laughed so hard that he had to take support from Komarov's shoulder to stay on his feet.

"You must forgive him, Oracle. Adelbert has never cared much for manners except where they apply to other people," noted Komarov dryly. "But he has a point. Everything he has told you might as well be a lie, but you have no options. Either you take the risk and help us retrieve Schuldig, or you lose everything. You'll be imprisoned until everything is over. We have orders to question you on your visions regarding Japan. But if you help us, we can restore your former position along with your team and your telepath."

The man's words were frank to the point of cruelty, but Crawford would not have expected Komarov to decorate the truth. It wasn't his style. Komarov was only stating the facts, not threatening him. Unless something had dramatically changed since the last time he had met his former mentor, Komarov had as little choice in all this as Crawford. For that reason, there was one word that tasted more bitter than the rest.

We.

His unblinking eyes moved to Dietrich, and then back to Komarov, and back to Dietrich again. He had always expected that if Komarov had to choose sides, he would stand with Crawford. Not with Dietrich.

Komarov's face remained expressionless. Dietrich's laughter ebbed away with one last chuckle. His hand gripped his partner's shoulder tighter. A devious smile curved his lips. His eyes were doing that again — giving the impression that he knew exactly what was going on in Crawford's mind.

Crawford released the crushed paper ball from his fist. The slender paper crane had turned into a grotesque, twisted monster. Exactly like something inside Crawford.

"Oh, hush, Oracle. Don't take it so hard."

Crawford pursed his lips. He bit down the snappy response. He was _not_ "taking it hard".

Dietrich's hand wandered up to touch Komarov's hair affectionately. Not unlike one might touch a cherished ornament. "Hush," he added. "Everything can be just like it was."

Komarov closed his eyes. But he did not turn his head away or flinch at the touch.

With a dark, throaty chuckle, Dietrich turned to look at Crawford again. "Come, Oracle," he urged. "You have everything to gain and nothing left to lose. You want your freedom as much as I want mine. If you work with me, we can fix this mess. Like all this never happened. And we'll both get what we want."

Crawford didn't trust the master telepath for a second. And knowing just how deep inside Komarov Dietrich had crawled and having witnessed how Dietrich played Schuldig's body like a puppet... he didn't think he could really trust Komarov either.

With Schuldig under Dietrich's spell... he stood completely alone.

"Well, Oracle?" Dietrich prompted him. "What's your answer? Will you rescue your telepath?" The devil laughed. "Will you shape destiny with me?"

Crawford's eyes darted between the older two men and the redhead for an endless minute. He was thinking about what Schuldig had said in the forest.

_I guess I did it for the both of us. _

They had been talking about something simple; seeing a little bit of trouble to tend to Crawford's wounds. But Crawford contemplated whether Schuldig might have done more. He contemplated gratitude and the many ways in which he might claim his telepath's soul.

And lose his own.

But in the end, hesitation was a useless exercise. His choice had been made long before it was presented to him. He had made it the moment he had come back here, prepared to walk through the horror and darkness of Rosenkreuz once again. Schuldig was that one accident that had become a plan. Crawford had seen the future. Schuldig was waiting for him.

Oracle was never wrong. He would take this leap of faith. For his telepath. For himself. For the future.

Crawford pushed his glasses up his nose with a gentle tap.

"Very well," his deep, determined voice rolled. "Let's make it a foursome, Herr Dietrich. I will help you, if you restore my position and return my telepath to me."

Dietrich smiled. Like the devil incarnate.

"It's a deal."


	11. It's a Theory

**- MINDS -**

**Chapter Six  
:: it's a theory ::**

"Very good." Komarov's words were like a stamp at the bottom of a contract. Without explanation, he gestured Crawford to follow and whirled around. "Come with me."

Crawford meant to follow, but something kept his feet rooted to the floor. The pause was the length of a lost lifetime. The rustling sound of the red pen was like an itch in Crawford's bones. Schuldig kept on drawing meaningless pieces of lives on meaningless pieces of paper, and Crawford kept wanting to shake him. Wake him up.

_Wake up, Schuldig._

But the rustling did not stop.

"Don't worry, Oracle," leered Dietrich's hateful voice, dripping condescension. "I'll take care of him in the meantime."

The misplaced mockery of his supposed sensitivities chased Crawford on the move. The crunch-crunch-crunch of paper under his boots gave him some twisted sort of pleasure. Ah, if only they were the fingers, the toes, the bones of a particular black-haired, black-hearted telepath!

Komarov was already sweeping his hand over the scanner near the door. Crawford refused to glance over his shoulder. But he stopped dead in his tracks when he heard it again.

»_Come.»_

Every last muscle in Crawford's body twitched and his head jerked to the side. But he could not detect a shock of red moving. Nothing had moved in the cell.

Only Dietrich's gleaming grey eyes were watching.

"Oracle," Komarov's voice called him. The older precognitive stepped out into the corridor.

Crawford hurried his steps to follow before the door would click shut after Komarov. He just couldn't shake the idea of a pair of bright blue laser beams watching him go.

Perhaps he was going mad.

Komarov gave him far too much time to mull over the disturbing idea. He walked purposefully, like a man on a schedule. He led Crawford through a couple of corridors, around a few corners to yet another door. This one had a label.

_Project Schwarz  
Operations_

Crawford had never been here before. He knew that there were plenty of hidden areas in Rosenkreuz, and he had visited some of them, but he had never been privileged this deep within the classified facilities. During the years he had served Project Schwarz, his briefings had normally occurred either via secure phone lines or computer connections, or up in Dietrich's private quarters. He had been privileged to visit the Elders and he had had a secret Sigma status, but he had never been approved to attend operational meetings. He had no idea how big the team working on Project Schwarz really was.

Komarov went through the security protocol — two different scanners, voice verification and a security code — and finally the door slid open. The room was obviously intended primarily as a conference room. A large screen on one wall overlooked a long table with enough seats for a dozen people. The room was clinically clean and sparsely furnished, but Crawford caught what appeared to be a refrigerator and a mini-bar. This room was clearly intended for long sessions.

"I need to brief you on a few things, Oracle." Komarov walked to the conference table. "You need to understand what we are doing."

Crawford followed him. Komarov stopped to stare at the big screen.

"You know that Project Schwarz is a top secret Sigma weapons development programme. You know about most of our subjects. Only the best specimen were selected to Team Schwarz." The man balled his hand to a fist behind his back. "You were one of our most successful specimen."

Crawford's eyes flicked over to his former mentor from under his brows. His glasses flashed as he dipped his head to the side. "You hand-picked me, Herr Komarov."

The older precognitive didn't acknowledge. He didn't need to. They had discussed this a long time ago.

"Make no mistake, Oracle, this is Adelbert's project." His eyes caught a distant aspect, like he was looking through time — but not forwards like one with his talent normally did. His voice lost some of its purpose as he went on quietly. "But he would never have come this far without me. I taught him about many things they were too afraid to teach to telepaths."

Crawford carefully selected a place near his former mentor's right shoulder, to see his profile but not close enough to disturb Komarov's private space. Controlled distance had always been a key element in their relationship, as it perhaps always was between precognitives. He said nothing, because he knew that with Komarov, silence prompted better answers than eager questions.

"It started innocently enough. Doesn't it always?" Komarov murmured, talking like one might recount a near-forgotten dream. Slow and ponderous, as though he might forget the words if he didn't give them enough weight. "Team Schatten was a secret operations unit, so like many other team leaders in my position, I saw the benefits of forming telepathic links between my team members. For a unit like mine, it was important for me to able to get reports from my agents quickly without compromising their cover. I cultivated a relationship with each of my undercover telepaths so that they could contact me more easily across longer distances." Komarov paused. "But none of them was powerful enough to link them all together."

Crawford said not a word. This was the information he had wanted for years. Komarov knew how much he wanted to know what had happened. What prompted him to answer the questions now, Crawford could only guess. He couldn't even know for sure that it was Komarov telling him all this. Were Dietrich's maliciously smiling lips simply talking through an external speaker?

But none of this sounded like Dietrich.

"Then Adelbert was assigned to me." The lines on Komarov's sunken face deepened. He paused, like he had to fight to get the rest out through his tense lips. "We worked well together," whispered the hollow voice. "Too well."

A deep silence followed. Crawford waited for several heartbeats, but then — his gift suggested that Komarov was about to change the subject and continue talking about Project Schwarz. He seized a hold of Komarov's arm. He forced the older man to turn around. To face him.

"You got along so well that you thought you could control him. So you locked minds with him, despite regulations. Something happened, he broke your mind." Crawford's fingers dug deeper into Komarov's arm. "What was it?"

Komarov held Crawford's unblinking gold gaze. The sadness welling in his deep-set, dark eyes glanced right off the hard gold pieces — Crawford refused sympathy, refused respect. Dmitri Komarov owed him for the information he had kept from him. And for the visions that had sent Schuldig's soul right into Dietrich's waiting arms.

"Isn't it the time I know, Herr Komarov?" Crawford demanded. "What was he trying to do? What went wrong? The mind lock didn't damage you. What was it?"

Komarov's mouth formed a tense line. Tight-lipped as always. But this time, Crawford refused to be thwarted.

He switched to a different tone, and a different form of address. One he hoped would strike a chord. "What is it, Master? What are you not telling me?"

Komarov closed his eyes slowly. His facial muscles twitched like he was fighting on the inside. Crawford could only guess — was it Dietrich, or were these some more private demons?

"I once talked to you about transcending human existence," the older man whispered at last. "You know that Adelbert wants to link many minds to create a channel." Komarov opened his eyes slowly. "But what happens if you link deep enough with another psychic?" He cocked a single inquisitive eyebrow. "Do you think you can use another person's talent?"

Crawford's fingers flexed on Komarov's arm. The way he worked together with Schuldig, he knew it was only a breath away from what Komarov was suggesting. "Maybe," he conceded reluctantly. "Momentarily. Maybe you can share bits and pieces." Like he had shared his vision with Schuldig in the forest during the mind lock. "But control?" Crawford shook his head. "Telepaths can manipulate other psychics into using their talent, but they can't take control of another person's gift." He narrowed his eyes. "Is that what he wants to do? Steal talents? It's not possible."

Komarov's eyes were hard as steel. "Correct," he said grimly. "It's not."

Crawford closed his mouth like he might never speak another word. Horror was written on his face. _Is that what happened? He tried to steal your talent?_ And, more importantly, _Is that what he wants to do to me?_

The shadows shifted on Komarov's face as the man's expression melted into a haunted mask of sorrow. Komarov shook his head. "You jump to conclusions, Oracle. Even Adelbert isn't such a fool."

"Then what did he do? What does he want?" Crawford's lips were dry. How could he trust Komarov to be telling him the truth, when Dietrich might be there, behind those dark eyes, using Komarov's mouth to speak the lies he hoped Crawford to believe?

"What does he want? You know the answers to that question already, Oracle," Komarov said gently. "The Elders sell us a dream of a better world where true supreme beings shall rule over the weak and the faulty. They are trying to put our people in key positions all over the world, to take over businesses and eventually countries. But you've seen the truth. What are they _really_ trying to do?"

Crawford considered his answer carefully. "They spread chaos, violence and death, because they believe it'll release enough energy to summon demonic powers." He squinted at Komarov's solemn face. "That's the link? Herr Dietrich doesn't want to steal our talents, he just wants to channel them. He wants to elevate himself just like the Elders, by connecting enough minds to pull power from the beyond?" Crawford shook his head. "But I still don't see why he needs Schuldig so badly. He's powerful himself. Why..."

"Here," Komarov cut him off, his hand moving like a striking snake to tap Crawford on the temple. "It's all here, Oracle. It all begins and ends here. Clairvoyants, telekinetics... all our gifts are nothing but energy controlled by our minds. And telepaths are links. The more powerful, the more varied the telepath's talent is, the deeper he can connect. I've told you all this before." His fingertips lingered on Crawford's brow, brushing back a few black strands. His dark eyes searched Crawford's face. "You do not see it, Oracle, because you do not want to see it."

Crawford remembered vividly another conversation they had had on the same subject.

_The dark, deep-set eyes bored into Crawford's soul. They swallowed everything. Including his breath._

_Komarov's response was curt, "Psychic energy cannot be destroyed, Oracle. But all of it is controlled by the mind, no matter the talent." His eyes were burning from under the thick eyebrows. "It all starts from the mind."_

_Crawford believed that he understood. He was about to anticipate what Komarov was saying, "Telepaths link with all psychic energy..."_

_But Komarov cut him off, "As do precognitives." He was speaking urgently. Faster than Crawford had ever heard him speak. "Like two points of a single line. We are the possibilities, they are the presence. They can't touch us and we can't touch them, except when we consciously put our thoughts together."_

_"Our links are special." Yes, he believed that he knew what Komarov was saying: "Just like Barba and Matheso..."_

_"No," Komarov cut him off again. He spat out rushed, choppy words, "Their theories are inaccurate. Telepaths are links, Oracle." His eyes looked almost wild. Crawford had never seen an expression like that on his mentor's face. "You think it's nothing if they just share with you. But that's only where it starts. Then they go deeper and deeper. The deeper you let them, the deeper they get. Your telepath showed you what they can do... you've been inside energy itself, but that's nothing... that's nothing." Komarov's eyes narrowed. "The more powerful, the more talented they are, the deeper they can get. If they get in deep enough, they can share everything with you. Your thoughts... your feelings... even your body. And if they break you, they can take it all, they can own you. They'll share everything. All the time."_

At the time, Crawford had thought that Komarov simply shared with him the theory on how his partner had destroyed him. But in the light of everything else they had talked about — his eyes widened.

"Telepaths tap directly into the source of all psychic power. So... by channelling enough minds, enough talents, maybe they can transcend the limitations of their own soul. You're suggesting that he wants Schuldig because..." His fingers on Komarov's sleeve lost their steel grip. His whisper was barely audible, "He's a pure talent. They say that a telepath like him is restricted only by the limitations of his own consciousness. So if Herr Dietrich uses him as a channel and reaches into the netherworld..." His voice faded.

_We're all fucked_ didn't quite cover the consequences of Dietrich getting his hands on a source of unlimited power.

"It's a theory." Komarov wheeled around on his heels to face the screen again.

Crawford stood frozen, staring at Komarov's forbidding figure. Once upon a time long ago, both Dietrich and Komarov had taught him that everybody were essentially part telepathic. Now, Crawford saw that particular teaching in an entirely new light. Perhaps the older men had never meant to suggest that telepathy was a commonplace talent. Perhaps they had always meant to imply that a powerful telepath had limitless access to a resource that everybody possessed.

Crawford's pride still battled the revelation. He wanted to debate this strange application of telepathy Komarov suggested. His cheeks slightly flushed, he opened his mouth.

"You asked me what he did to me," Komarov said before Crawford had got a word out. "But it's not what he did to me. It's what he wanted me to do for him. It's what he wants you to do for him now. You know what that is."

Crawford closed his mouth. He knew. Dietrich needed a clairvoyant to connect with alternate levels of existence. Netherworld. Crawford did not know which term applied, he didn't care.

"I assumed that he needs me to open the gates of hell for him." Crawford raised an eyebrow. "Is that what broke you, Herr Komarov? He wanted you to reach through time and space for him and it went wrong?"

Komarov's tense lips refused words. His chest refused breath. Crawford could *see* that a straight answer was not coming. The reason could have been anything. Dietrich interfering, not letting him share the information. Or the event itself being too painful for Komarov. When the words finally came, they were made of steel and hung heavy in the air.

"He told you that any clairvoyant will do. But the truth is that some of us are better equipped to provide him what he needs." Komarov looked at Crawford from over his shoulder. "Rosenkreuz cultivates precognitive clairvoyants, because those who know the future may own it. Adelbert loves precognitives for the same reason. But your gift of precognition is not why he prefers you. Some clairvoyants are simply... more." Komarov's voice softened. "Like you, Oracle."

"Me."

Komarov raised his hand and touched Crawford's glasses with the back of his fingers. "You no longer need your eyes to see. You are like Colonel Amlisch."

Crawford blinked. For a moment, he believed that his mentor had received false reports of his condition. "I'm not like the Colonel," he objected. "Our talents are very different. I cannot see that far into the present and he cannot see the future at all. The accident altered my gift, but he was born with his. It isn't the same."

Komarov's fingers brushed back the black bangs. The display of affection made Crawford's skin crawl. Dietrich had a habit of touching things he liked to believe he owned. Crawford was reminded again that he had no way to be certain whether this really was Komarov.

"You were classified as precognitive when you came to Rosenkreuz. But you always had the capacity to be more."

The hard gold eyes narrowed to thin slits. Wait.

"That's not what you told me," Crawford said. The conversation had happened a long time ago, and Crawford believed it was one of the few he could be sure he had had with Komarov in private, without Dietrich eavesdropping or altering Komarov's words. "You said that you didn't think I was any more special than any other precognitive."

Komarov dropped his hand and replaced it behind his back. "And indeed you were not." A meaningful pause preceded his emphatic addition, "At the time."

A deep, upset silence followed. Crawford still wanted to hang onto the hope that this was all Dietrich. Trying to fool him into thinking that he was talking with Komarov.

And then his former mentor crushed that hope. "You may recall I also told you that you have potential," Komarov said harshly. "That you may have an exceptional talent."

The exact quote proved something. It was harder and harder to believe that those eyes were not Komarov's. He spoke like the man Crawford had used to know. Crawford was convinced that his mentor would not have shared that particular conversation with his partner voluntarily. Never. And if this really was Komarov, then... Crawford squeezed his other hand into a fist behind his back.

"You lied to me."

"I misled you to keep you from understanding the truth too soon. You weren't ready." A softer expression mellowed the lines of Komarov's face to express what could only be called fondness. "But you have grown since then."

The gentle tone didn't make up for the years of betrayed trust. Dietrich's manipulation had never made Crawford feel so used, because he had never put faith in Dietrich. But he had had faith in Komarov. He couldn't, wouldn't accept the idea that he hadn't been ready. If this truly was Komarov, and if he would keep something like this from Crawford, what else had he not told him and why?

So many uncomfortable questions bubbled to the surface. How long had Komarov known about what would happen to Schuldig? He had given Crawford the impression that he was still capable of withholding information from Dietrich. He might have kept the truth from Dietrich and Crawford both, and then served the vision to Dietrich at a carefully selected moment. Perhaps he wasn't as helpless as Crawford had assumed.

What secrets were still locked behind those dark eyes? Was Komarov really any better than Dietrich? Crawford had never before wanted to hurt his mentor, but now...

He turned away. Sharply.

A shadow passed over Komarov's eyes. The affection faded from his face. "Your powers are still growing," he whispered. "Stay mindful. You'll need to adapt and learn to understand the changes." His voice was more distant, more silent.

Reluctant, lumpy.

Crawford knew what that tone meant, if it was genuine. But sympathy, compassion and kindness were dead parts of his soul, and he was running out of trust. He had been driven to the end of his rope and too close to death, and maybe a part of him had not survived from the cell behind the door with the blood-red cross drawn on it.

"Why do you think I would ever help you two?" Crawford selected his words pointedly. For all intents and purposes, Komarov was working with Dietrich — so be it.

A twitch went through Komarov's body. He closed his eyes for a second, two, three. Then —

"You have already made that choice, Oracle. You'll do it because you want the same thing we do."

Crawford cocked a challenging eyebrow. "And what's that?"

"Nothing more than the end of the world as we know it, Oracle," Komarov whispered. "Nothing more."


	12. Why Fight Destiny

**- MINDS -**

**Chapter Seven  
:: why fight destiny ::**

_The end of the world as we know it._

Komarov's words drifted in a deathly silence. His eyes were fixed onto the large screen ahead. So were Crawford's. The two precognitives stood side by side, their shoulders only a couple of inches apart, their backs equally erect, their forms rigid like two statues — one carved from darkness, the other a monument of eternal sorrow.

The lingering pause yielded many minutes of space for Crawford's thoughts.

In Crawford's world, what was to come had already happened. No child-like wonder, no curiosity could survive the trials that had made the man they called Oracle. He had spent his life replaying video clips over and over again, conducting a never-ending theatrical production. His memories were the bastard children of both yesterday and tomorrow, and today rarely brought surprises.

For a seer, the progress of time became synonymous with the movements of a perpetually rotating wheel going nowhere. Moving, moving, moving. But never forward. He went through the motions to keep that wheel spinning, but he kept forgetting that each cycle was supposed to mean something. Years kept quietly eroding away the natural responses that people called emotions.

And so, precious were the moments upon which the shadow of the future did not fall. Those moments were thrilling — both exciting and horrifying. Crawford loathed them and loved them. As much as the sudden loss of direction disrupted him, even frightened him, it had another side. During those fleeting, cherished seconds, he could believe that it wasn't all decided. Those moments gave him strength and courage, because they proved that time was not an everlasting fixed pattern, and he could influence the future.

Schuldig had given him many moments like that.

And now Schuldig was gone, and to make matters worse, his death was the result of the one thing Crawford didn't think would be possible — he had failed to read time correctly. He could have made excuses and said that he was compromised due to his injuries, but he was not in the habit of giving himself the luxury of excuses. Had he not misinterpreted what he saw, had he not let his fear influence his decisions, had he not given in to the temptation to think, for a little while, that he wasn't alone — would Schuldig be still with him now?

Bitterly, Crawford's mind wandered in a slice of the future and a splash of the past. He wasn't used to looking at the past with regret. He was a man with a hundred plans; one for every contingency, one for every possible future that he had foreseen, and few for the ones he could only imagine. He had spent so much time preparing — and by God, he refused to admit that any of it had been for nothing.

So he soon turned from regret and looked at the past as he always did, to analyse it and not to second-guess it. He lingered in cold contemplation over the configurations of cause and consequence. Of fate and faith.

And he knew that Komarov was right. He had made his choice a long time ago. He had chosen the path that would lead him here, ever since that night he had, for the first time, said "Yes".

_Yes, Herr Dietrich._

Right on cue, a quiet, ominous sound broke the silence. Komarov's lips were pressed tightly together. There was no indication that he heard, even less generated, the dark disembodied laughter.

Next, Crawford felt a touch on his lower back. Like fingers running up his spine. He whirled around on his heels — but no one was standing behind him. There was no hand, nothing.

This was a familiar game from his days in Rosenkreuz.

Just as Crawford opened his mouth to question his mentor, Komarov moved fluidly, melting into the movement as he side-stepped to stand next to Crawford's shoulder. "So tense, Oracle," he murmured. "You should learn to relax."

Uncharacteristic words for Komarov. But quite common for...

"Herr Dietrich," Crawford whispered.

Komarov's lips curved in a smile that was both familiar and foreign. "Why all this upset and hesitation, Oracle?" asked the voice that should have belonged to Komarov but didn't. "Haven't you seen it? When the Elders fall, the Order disintegrates. Someone new must rise from the rubble to fill the void and take control." The demon's dark laugh rippled up along Crawford's spine. "I will be that someone, and you will be well rewarded for your help."

Crawford flexed his fingers. "Your rewards have been known to fall short of expectations, Herr Dietrich," he noted dryly.

"If you didn't think I could be trusted to deliver on my promises, why have you played this game with me all these years?" inquired the voice that now sounded strange in Crawford's ears because he was hearing two voices. Two familiar voices, speaking at the same time, one telepathically transmitted. A sinister smile on the ghost lips belied the danger that lurked within the dark whisper, "Perhaps you are upset because you realise that the game is over, and you have lost. Let's not kid ourselves, Oracle. You always meant to cooperate with me only to a point before betraying me, and we both know it."

And so the truth was let loose and left hanging, heavy like a steel cloak over Crawford's shoulders. It had never been spoken out loud, but it had always been implied, yet for reasons of their own, both Crawford and Dietrich had ignored it until now. For as long as they were united by a common goal in the immediate future, their cooperation had worked like a rusty old hinge. It did its job — not without complaint but always faithfully.

Crawford's pause was heavy with complaints that threatened to erase all faith.

"Having trouble admitting to your defeat, Oracle?" taunted the devil. "You cannot beat me. I can have you killed and we can waste your potential for foolish pride. Or you can be a smart boy. You were always meant to serve me. Haven't you understood that yet? Isn't that why you came to me? Isn't that why you agreed to the bargain, despite the risks?"

Crawford turned slowly to face the demon. Words died on his lips. He saw something more than Komarov's face. He saw right through the sunken cheeks and the dark eyes. He saw two bottomless holes filled with white space.

Cold. Forever cold.

Dietrich's hateful face was drawn before Crawford's eyes in perfect detail, interlaced with Komarov's features. Crawford was looking directly at the devil within the disguise.

The demon was licking his lips. "Enough foreplay, don't you think?" A hungry, husky laugh drifted.

Crawford's eyes narrowed to slits. Dietrich's mind tricks had confused or distracted him in the past. But Brad Crawford would not be played by this beast anymore.

Crawford dipped his head to a nod and a glint of light ran over the glass spheres to first hide and then reveal a pair of focused, intense pools of gold. "I agree, Herr Dietrich," he said. "I believe we had a deal. I'd like to get to business."

"So you _are_ interested in doing business with me?" A single arched eyebrow questioned Crawford's resolve. "For a moment, it sounded like you'd changed your mind."

The curve of Crawford's eyebrow matched Dietrich's challenge. "Why fight destiny, Herr Dietrich?"

His eyes fixed on target, Crawford raised his hand. The deathly cold eyes watched him moving closer. Crawford reached in to touch the ghostly face. Static electricity pricked his skin. He opened his mouth to speak as he brushed the back of his hand over both the real and the imaginary face.

Before he could get a word out, something sucked him in. It was like sinking in icy quicksand.

Crawford's vision blurred. The next thing he knew, he was trapped in a vortex of confused, half-formed images. Growling, snarling lips, bared teeth, demonic visions of terror merged with statuesque solemn figures, epitomes of firm infinity.

Crawford lost his grasp on reality. He no longer remembered the dark eyes and the sunken features of his former mentor. The only constant in the chaos was a pair of gleaming, glistening cold pieces of ice, welcoming, inviting him for more.

More. Always more.

Only vaguely Crawford realised that he moved. Closer to the chill.

_»__You're right, Oracle. I do need you. So you know you will be well rewarded for your efforts.__»_ The illusory snarling lips curved to an expectant smile. _»__Come, come, it's not a difficult choice. A wealthy life, or a wretched death, Oracle? How many more times will you make the same decision before you believe it was always meant to be?__»_

The keen gold searched the colourless eyes. _Come, come._ So the devil set down his trap, offering his victim the temptation with one hand even as he wielded the threat with the other. _Come, come._

_Come,_ and he was thinking about the push and the pull and the games he had played with the devil all these years, and how a man who knew the future could always hold all the strings in his hands.

_Come,_ and Crawford was thinking about Schuldig, and how Schuldig could have poked in Dietrich's head, maybe found some additional information, something, anything that would help Crawford decide which strings to pull.

They had worked well together.

_»__Come, come,__»_ leered an all-too-familiar telepathic voice.

This was an all-too-familiar game.

The chaos swelled, everything twisted, contorted. Suddenly, a snarling devil's face leaped out at him. With a gasp, Crawford tried to pull away, but before he ever found out if he could have escaped —

Wham. Something warm hit him. Crawford blinked rapidly. He realised that a very real palm pinned his hand against Komarov's cheek. Komarov's bony, knobbly fingers twined with Crawford's. The next moment, Crawford was looking at the dual image of two faces again. The pupils had disappeared from the icy grey eyes. They glowed nearly completely white.

"Haven't you wasted enough time, Adelbert?" whispered Komarov's lips.

Another telepathically transmitted laugh vibrated in Crawford's head. Like spider feet wrapped in silk dancing in his brain. _»Oh, Dmitri... Dmitri... very well,__»_ conceded a silken whisper._»__Get on with it. Show him why he's here.»_

With that, the vision of Dietrich's face faded.

Komarov's facial muscles twitched. The smile fell away, his eyes regained their usual depth. He flinched. Away from Crawford.

But his fingers followed an opposite instinct. They clenched to hold on to Crawford's hand tighter. A warm, solid clasp. Certain and eternal like Komarov's entire being had always been.

Something in Crawford's chest stopped dead. More than a decade's worth of past intimacy came crashing back. His eyes fell down Komarov's jacket. His second sight was picking up the buttons in clear, breathtaking detail. He focused on the intense visual input, if only to keep from thinking about Komarov's firm hold of his hand.

Brad Crawford was no longer the lost, lonely boy who had once found comfort from this solid, secure hand.

"Oracle..." Komarov's mouth moved like he meant to say something, but his voice died.

Crawford pursed his lips tightly together. He should have pulled his hand away. But he didn't.

So it was Komarov who dropped his hand first. He turned to the conference table. Komarov's hand slid on the surface of the table. His thumb flicked a switch. Immediately the large screen directly ahead sprung to life. Several sets of numbers appeared. A keyboard swivelled up.

Crawford's hand fell slowly. His thoughts were like eels squirming in a sealed barrel, looking for a crack. He did not speak.

Komarov's fingers danced on the keys. The numbers began to flash. Jumbled bits of code flickered on the screen, until the numerical chaos dissolved into two pictures. Two faces.

Crawford looked up. He froze. He sometimes struggled with two-dimensional images, but he had no trouble seeing these faces. A white-haired young man with a scarred face. A young Asian boy, around thirteen or fourteen years old.

"You should know what happened to Schwarz." Komarov's voice was calm, controlled, quiet. Back to business. "The team was disbanded and put back into the system."

Crawford's face went dead. He did not speak.

"There was an incident when experiment Prodigy was informed that you and Schuldig wouldn't return. You knew he wouldn't take the news well." Komarov's voice was matter-of-fact. "They couldn't control him. Prodigy was placed in a special programme intended to restore his capacity to serve the Order. They believe that the familiar surroundings will help him, so they sent him back to Japan. His situation is stable now, but I'm not sure how much he remembers. They modified his mind."

Crawford's face twitched. He flexed his fingers. But even now, not a single sound escaped from between his tightly pursed lips.

Komarov gave Crawford a sidelong look. "As to Berserker, we're keeping him here in Rosenkreuz until we have assembled a new team capable of handling him."

Crawford took a few more seconds to process and accept what Komarov was telling him. His mind swelled with undefined, unrefined thoughts for another one, two, three seconds, then he turned to Komarov. "All right. But why are you telling me this, Herr Komarov?"

Komarov turned to face him. "You keep asking questions, but you already know the answers." His dark eyes bored right through the oval glasses and into Crawford's brain. "They need you, Oracle."

Crawford pressed his lips tighter together. He balled his hands to fists. He said nothing.

"Once we have restored Schuldig, we will restore Schwarz. This..." Komarov waved his hand over the screen, "is a reminder of what you have at stake. I trust you will keep that in mind when we talk with the Elders."

Crawford's body language shifted instantly. He became more alert. "The Elders?"

"In order to re-establish your rank and Schuldig's position in your team, we must convince the Elders that it was a mistake to dismiss you." Komarov spoke with a monotonous, robotic tone. Like none of what he said had any personal or emotional value. He quirked an eyebrow and sounded a touch more dry. "This is in line with your plans, I trust? Once you found Schuldig, you meant to convince Adelbert to acquire you the clearance to report to the Elders that Team Schwarz is essential for their plans in Japan."

Crawford's shoulders shifted position, revealing his reluctance to admit how correct or incorrect Komarov was.

Komarov put his hands behind his back. "I have some information that will help convince the Elders. I will back your story."

Crawford narrowed his eyes. "You, Herr Komarov?" He took another look at Komarov's uniform and the secret Sigma organisation badge. The man was obviously dressed for an official meeting.

Komarov lifted his chin. "Composer is the head supervisor of Rosenkreuz operations, but I am in charge of observing project Schwarz. My reports and Adelbert's are filed under separate codes in the system and cross-referenced. It is my task to see to it that the project serves the Elders' best interests. They will trust my judgement." With that, Komarov dismissed the subject of his exact rank. "I expect them to want to send you to Japan immediately. You will need to convince them that because of the remnants of the mind lock, you need to help Composer to perform a telepathic operation to make Schuldig functional again."

The silence was thick enough to choke them both as the two precognitives stared at one another. Crawford's jaws moved; so did Komarov's.

"Why?" Crawford demanded. "If all you want is to perform this ritual to get the power—"

Something changed in Komarov's eyes. "Isn't it a little late for these questions, Oracle?" he asked quietly.

Crawford stopped at that voice and the way the dark eyes looked at him. Gone was the hollow, soulless look, replaced by something far more familiar.

These were the eyes of the man he might as well have called "father".

And for just one second, Oracle slipped away, and Brad Crawford was a little boy — looking at the man who had raised him. The man to whom he had promised, a long time ago...

_"I'll find a way to free you."_

His fists trembled. His mouth wanted to open to speak words that would be useless for as long as he had not kept his promise. Useless, for as long as his mentor was still imprisoned by the devil who wanted to own both their souls.

One breath, one long, endless second of sad, deep-set dark eyes meeting haunted gold —

And then all expression fell away from Komarov's eyes again. The devil's face did not reappear to announce Dietrich's malicious control over Komarov's body, yet nothing particular signalled Komarov's personal presence. It would have taken a telepath to know for sure which man this was.

A telepath Crawford didn't have.

"We need to place you and your team in a very specific position." Komarov's voice was cold and matter-of-fact. "You have the motivation to cooperate, and we have a common goal. Trust has nothing to do with it. Neither has loyalty. You don't need to understand why." Komarov raised one eyebrow. "Are there any more questions, Oracle?"

Crawford searched Komarov's figure for a few more seconds. Few long, long seconds.

Then, without another word to broach the subject of the various "whys", Crawford fixed his tie and adjusted his suit with a few quick moves, making sure that the gun was inside his jacket, well out of sight. He checked the position of his shoulders and put his hands behind his back as he turned to the large screen.

"No questions, Herr Komarov." His tone was as professional as his confident posture.

Oracle was reassembled, put back in place, prepared — Brad Crawford hidden away within the perfect suit.


	13. Make Me Proud

**- MINDS -**

**Chapter Eight  
:: make me proud ::**

Three old faces appeared on the large screen. They were seated behind what appeared to be a large, wooden table in a spacious, luxuriously furnished room. Two men and one woman. She was the only one smiling as she stroked the cat sitting in her lap.

The bald man with fierce features and a beard was the first to speak.

"Counsellor. I assume you have a good reason to disturb us."

"Indeed, Master." Komarov dipped his head to a polite bow. "Forgive me for the interruption, but Oracle has important information to share. He recently received some visions that—"

"We have seen the report," interrupted the bald man curtly. "He claims to have information about the Takatori operation. We expected it would take longer from you to cross-check his story, Counsellor." He narrowed his eyes. "But we are listening... for the moment."

Komarov did not need to look at Crawford to indicate that the floor was his.

Crawford dipped his entire upper body for a bow. "I have seen Kritiker's plans. I fear they may influence our choice of leaders. I have foreseen an attempt to assassinate the Takatori family and place Reiji Takatori's youngest son Mamoru..."

But the bald man cut him off abruptly, "All this was in the report. We have not foreseen a takeover within the time frame we are interested in."

"Yet," finished Crawford boldly.

An ominous silence descended into the room. The two men looked displeased. Komarov and Crawford met the scowls serenely, unafraid.

The old woman kept smiling.

"You suggest that you have foreseen something we have not." The harshly spoken comment came from the moustached man with a monocle.

Komarov raised his hand and set it deliberately on Crawford's shoulder. "I told you once that Oracle has remarkable potential," he said. "His gift is unpredictable, but powerful. You know that he can be valuable to you. That is why you did not terminate him for his error. Why not let him prove to you that his eyes are ready to serve you again?"

At this, the bald man opened his mouth, then froze and glanced at the woman. Her eyes did not focus, like she wasn't really looking at anything in particular, yet even though only wires connected the Three Talents to the two clairvoyants, Crawford sensed a profound presence. He averted his eyes, as was appropriate when scrutinized so closely by one of the eldest members of the organization.

"You speak well, Counsellor," the woman said softly. "But I would hear your pupil. Crawford."

Her chosen form of address ― his name instead of his code name ― suggested that she was willing to consider re-establishing their former connection. Crawford bowed his head. "Yes?"

She kept petting the cat in her lap. Her voice carried a tone of motherly, calm curiosity. "Do you miss your team?"

Crawford's face remained stoic. "We worked well together. You are aware of the potential..."

"You are avoiding the subject," she said softly. Her smile still wouldn't fade, but her hand slowed its motion over the cat's back. It was a warning that she would not tolerate a second attempt to refuse a direct answer.

Crawford dipped his head humbly. "Forgive me. I'm not sure I would say that I miss my team. But I do miss what my team could have become. We could have been powerful." His glasses flashed as he raised his head, looking at the screen from under his brows. "We still could."

The bald man clicked his tongue. "You have violated the code of our sacred Order by sharing classified information without a clearance. That is a crime punishable by death."

"You were spared because we have seen your potential," the other male Elder continued. "You were sent back to the field because we chose to give you the opportunity to prove yourself worthy of our trust once again." He raised his brows. "Now, you believe that time has come?"

Crawford nodded. "Yes. I do."

"And what can you offer us in return for our faith?"

At this, Komarov cleared his throat. "He can bring you the vessel you seek."

A profound silence followed. Even the woman's smile faded. The bald man tapped his fingers on the desk. The tapping continued, continued, continued, until the bony fingers crawled to a fist, which he forcefully slammed on the table.

"You know the location of the vessel?" he demanded.

"Not as such. But Oracle will be able to find the vessel."

A pause, then the woman whispered, "Tell us more, Counsellor."

"I believe I know why we have not been able to locate the vessel yet. It does not yet exist, therefore it slips our attention."

"You suggest that the vessel has not been born yet?" The bald man shook his head. "The appointed time is getting closer. The vessel's body must be strong enough for the ritual. It must be at least ten years old by now."

"You might say that the vessel both is and is not born," Komarov said. "It is simply not ready."

The bald man narrowed his eyes. "Not ready?"

"Its powers are dormant. They will need to be activated before the vessel can be useful to you."

"For that," Crawford added softly, "you will need Schwarz." He paused, then continued deliberately, his eyes fixed on the screen, "More specifically, Schuldig."

The bald man's eyebrows jumped. "He was terminated."

Crawford shook his head, his eyes never leaving the large screen. "Not quite," he whispered.

The Elders' third silence was deeper than either of the two first. This time the woman stopped petting her cat altogether.

"It is an extraordinary story," Komarov said. "When we began to study him, we discovered that though his body had stopped functioning, it wasn't completely dead. You are aware of telepathically induced stasis that can slow bodily functions. It appears that instead of dying, he fell into some type of slumber. We have not reported this yet because we were uncertain if he could be recovered. We have repaired his body, but he remains unconscious. Please permit me to forward you the official reports."

Komarov leaned over the keyboard. As his fingers danced on the keyboard, the moustached man in the other end of the line leaned over somewhere past the screen. Soon he produced a print, which he offered to his two companions. Komarov and Crawford waited while the Elders perused the document.

The bald man was the first one to turn to the camera again. "I see," he said. A scowl creased his brow. "You suggest that the mind lock pulled him into a telepathic trance."

"It is not an uncommon reaction from a telepath at the brink of death," Komarov observed. "An already existing mind link will pull them under when they begin to lose consciousness. If the link is deep enough, it may result in a telepathically induced stasis."

"Hmm." The bald man was tapping the desk with his fingers again. "But if he remembers what Oracle shared with him, reviving him could be dangerous."

Crawford raised his brows. "Surely you are not afraid of him?" he inquired.

The bald man scowled. "He is a telepath," he spat. "Sharing classified information with telepaths is strictly forbidden for a reason. Even a trained one may be influenced. Their powers may get the better of them. There are simply too many risks, especially with powerful telepaths."

"You trust Composer with many secrets," Komarov noted.

"Only because you remain his keeper, Counsellor," said the woman softly. She had resumed petting her cat. "You have never let us down. But your pupil has proven unworthy of a keeper's position."

"Indeed? I would rather say that he has gone through an important experience and learned why the rules exist," Komarov suggested. His hand found Crawford's shoulder.

"The telepath crawled into my mind," Crawford said. His unblinking eyes never left the woman's face. "He jeopardised my judgement. Perhaps he manipulated me on purpose, perhaps not. Either way, I shall not let it happen again."

Her eerie, never-fading smile returned with a touch of malice. "You think you can be trusted not to let your emotions get the better of you again?"

"My emotions?" Crawford shook his head. "Were they ever really my emotions? I was compromised by the head trauma. The loyalty of a telepath cannot be won without the relationship becoming personal. Those feelings got momentarily confused."

"You grieved his death," she noted.

"Did I?" Crawford cocked a challenging eyebrow. "Or was I simply suffering from withdrawal?"

She looked thoughtful. The men sitting on either side evaluated Crawford critically.

"You have studied my mind extensively," Crawford reminded them. "You know that it was an uncharacteristic choice from me to share so deeply with him."

"Even if you speak the truth, Schuldig manipulated you once. How can we be sure that he will not do so again?" asked the other male Elder, his eyes narrowing to slits. "Perhaps we should replace him with another telepath."

"No other telepath will do," Crawford said, releasing his hands from behind his back and leaning forward over the conference table. He plastered his palms on the table surface. "The vessel's powers need to be triggered. It takes a very particular kind of a telepath to do that. You know what Schuldig can do. Think of his potential. Think how unlikely, how unusual it is that he survived. He is the one I need."

The Elders fell silent. The pause dragged on for several minutes. Crawford held his tongue. The best manipulators knew not only when to speak, but when to keep quiet to let their targets mull over the thoughts being fed to them. Crawford was exceptional at pacing his silences.

At length, the bald man touched his chin, stroking his beard thoughtfully. "So, your argument is that you can find the vessel and your telepath can make it operational." He raised one eyebrow. "But what of the rest of Schwarz? Why should we re-establish the entire team? Perhaps we have other plans for Prodigy and Berserker."

Crawford straightened his back and dropped his hands to his sides, but he didn't assume rigid attention. He stood at ease, relaxed, almost lazy, like a fish who had found the perfect stream to swim in ― or like a shark chasing a trail of blood. He was in his own element, working with a plan and an unfolding piece of the future.

"The hell you plan to unleash will trigger Prodigy's talent. You'll need someone who knows how to handle him when that happens. Prodigy was my discovery. No one understands his powers better than I do. As to Berserker... I don't have to tell you why I'll need him. He is the only one who can survive Prodigy's psychic attacks. Frankly, I'm surprised that you have chosen to separate them." He raised one eyebrow. "Unless Berserker, too, became too much to handle after Schuldig and I were out of the picture."

The Elders took another long moment to consider the suggestion.

At last, the bald man conceded, "You have our attention."

"We have always enjoyed your visits," the woman added. She sounded and looked as pleasant as ever. "You are welcome to present your case before us. If we find your visions pleasing, we will approve your request and send you to Japan."

Crawford bowed his head. "Thank you," he said. He gave a sideways glance at Komarov, who was standing with his hands behind his back, looking as serene as ever. "But I'm afraid I cannot leave immediately. Herr Dietrich requires my presence here to revive Schuldig."

Komarov continued Crawford's argument. "The mind lock was never fully broken. The telepathic operation to reconstruct Schuldig's mind will be more successful if Oracle is involved."

The Elders mused on the suggestion for a while.

"Very well, Counsellor," said the woman at length. "We will take this leap of faith. You may restore his mind. But you must ensure that Composer makes some appropriate adjustments. Like he did to Prodigy."

Crawford reacted immediately. "Removing Schuldig's memories of Schwarz would..."

"Ah-ah." The bald man raised his hand. "Nothing needs to be removed. Only modified."

The other male Elder gave a wry smile. "However, the less he remembers of your past intimacy, the better. Wouldn't you agree? It will make it easier for you to keep a professional distance in the future."

Komarov anticipated Crawford's brewing objection.

"Understood, Master," he said. His hand appeared on Crawford's shoulder like a reminder. He might as well have said it out loud ― _Steady. Sacrifices must be made, if we want their approval._

Crawford kept his mouth closed. He kept his unblinking eyes on the large screen. He kept his bluff intact.

"We will want to inspect him personally once it is done," the woman murmured. Her eyes drifted in the distance again, like she was looking at something that wasn't really there. "Send him here when he is ready. "

"Of course, Master," Komarov said. "It will be done."

"Very good," said the bald man. "Now, we're afraid we have other business to attend to."

The moustached man nodded to Komarov. "Good luck, Counsellor."

Komarov bowed. The connection went dead and the large screen dimmed. Crawford stood deathly still. Komarov's hand lingered on his shoulder. The two precognitives stared far into the distance for a long minute.

At length, Komarov spoke. "We will recover everything necessary for you to re-establish Schwarz. Schuldig will still recognise you."

Crawford said nothing. His eyes had lost all expression.

"Composer has tried to wipe his mind before to prevent him from remembering his life before Rosenkreuz." Komarov glanced at his former pupil. "I'm not sure how permanent that operation was."

Crawford's fingers twitched. He balled his hands to fists. He didn't turn to look at Komarov. "He never got back his memories of his past before the laboratories," he whispered. "Or he never told me."

Komarov pursed his lips. "To modify memories effectively, they must be replaced rather than removed," he mused. "That is a complicated procedure with a telepath who gets confused about his own memories. It's easy to make a mistake that will cause the entire construction to become unstable." He squeezed Crawford's shoulder. "Eventually, the mind might reject the false inserts and the real memories may surface."

Crawford squeezed his fists against his body. His mouth formed a tense line. Komarov was silent for a long moment. Perhaps he waited for a reaction that would never come.

The older man closed his eyes. He looked concentrated. Another few seconds of silence passed.

Crawford was frozen, his eyes and his heart lost somewhere in a past that might never converge with the future again. His fists trembled.

Komarov took a deep breath. He opened his eyes and turned around. He raised his hand and cupped Crawford's cheek to turn the younger man's face toward him. Crawford flinched, but Komarov stepped closer and grabbed the back of his head. He forced Crawford against the conference table.

"Listen to me. This is much bigger than you or your telepath."

Crawford tried to pull away. He needed a moment. He didn't want this contact, not now that he was―

Komarov took another step closer, bridging the distance between them, bringing them chest to chest. "Listen to me, Brad," he hissed. "Right now, Adelbert is not listening to us."

Komarov's words stopped Crawford's efforts to move away. His eyes widened. Komarov's grasp of his shoulder was warm, secure and firm. That and the name Komarov had used were reminders from the past, when Crawford had been too young for everything that was happening too soon.

"Listen to me," Komarov said again. "Getting his freedom was never enough for Adelbert. He doesn't want to just stop the Elders. He wants to steal their kingdom. You know that." Komarov searched Crawford's face like he was desperately looking for something. "Don't think you can play him. Composer does not share."

Crawford let go of Komarov's wrists and seized a hold of the man's shoulders. His knuckles turned white. He searched ― but no, he couldn't see any sign of Dietrich's presence. He opened his mouth. If this really was Komarov, he had questions. So many questions.

"Adelbert thinks nothing can get in his way now. You can use that to your advantage." Komarov's gaze darted back and forth between Crawford's eyes. "He will ask you to enter a mind link with him to restore Schuldig. But it's just an excuse. He plans to trick you and put you under his spell. He'll perform the ritual. He'll destroy us all if you don't stop him."

Crawford's knuckles turned white. "Stop him from doing what exactly? Summoning a demon? If he can do it against my will, why hasn't he done it a long time ago?" Crawford had to resist the urge to shake the man. "If you want me to stop him, you need to give me more information. Not more hints and riddles!"

Komarov shook his head. Without a word, he pulled Crawford's head closer, bringing their foreheads to touch.

Crawford's world stopped in between two heartbeats. A specific moment from the past repeated itself ― it was just like once upon a time many years ago.

_Timeless, noiseless thunder swallowed Crawford's consciousness._

_Crawford dragged in a slow breath. Komarov's eyes took away his ability to sense anything else of his surroundings. He was completely overwhelmed by the deafening hum of energy between them ― and then he fell into a place in between all places. It was a familiar place and a foreign place, and it was a hundred points of light compressed into a single glint at the tip of a sharp, sharp blade._

That place was the point of a needle. A single moment in time, one where time stopped existing. Just like back then, they were lost in a moment in time beyond time.

Crawford forgot that he had a body. Suddenly, he was a hundred things at once. He was a young frustrated teenager, looking in these dark eyes. He was something else, somewhere in the distant past where he had looked in those eyes for the very first time, sitting on his bed, knowing that this man had come to take him away and that he would never return.

He revisited a countless nights and countless days of these dark eyes watching him, telling him to look at the candle flame and focus.

Always, _"Focus."_

And finally, he saw these same dark eyes, but with an expression unlike anything he had ever seen before, full of tears, surrounded by wrinkles of laughter, and he heard an exuberant sigh.

Relief.

As though he had waited for this moment his entire life.

While Crawford choked on the vision, a voice penetrated his consciousness. It came from another place and another time that didn't feel as real as the place where the sigh of relief swelled.

"You'll understand everything in time. For now, you just need to focus. Adelbert will wear many disguises to beguile you. But no matter what he tells you, no matter what you see, do not let him trick you. Remember that you have only one goal. Find your telepath."

Crawford moistened his lips. Komarov's words echoed right through the vision of the sunken, wet cheeks and the glistening liquid eyes. He was beginning to understand that what he was seeing was two places in time, but he just couldn't decide which face was the one that was crying those tears of joy.

"When you have found your telepath..." Komarov's voice lowered to a barely audible whisper. "You will kill me."

Crawford blinked rapidly. The shock shattered the vision. He was looking at a calm face, expectant face.

_You will kill me._

"No." He breathed it out.

"It's the only way to stop him," Komarov said. "I'm a part of him. Killing me will be like ripping off a limb from a running man. It will give you the time you need."

Crawford's mouth hung open. He should have asked "time I need for what?" and a million other questions. He should have screamed, "no". But the space between his parted lips refused to be filled with words.

Komarov's hand cupped the back of his head. "You will do it." He said it gently, with certainty. Like a prediction, not like a command.

Crawford clutched Komarov's uniform jacket with trembling hands. "I promised to find a way to free you." He choked on every word.

Komarov shook his head. "This is the way," he whispered. "It's too late for anything else. I cannot survive without him. You know that."

Crawford shook his head. He refused, refused, refused to accept that it couldn't be changed.

Komarov's voice hardened. "I've taught you better than this. I've used my few remaining resources to sabotaging Adelbert. He knows it. Yet he hasn't killed me. Why? Did you think it's sentiment?" The man shook his head. He closed his eyes. "Even he cannot break the link," he murmured. "Our minds are intertwined."

And Crawford remembered...

_Komarov peered at the glistening liquid at the bottom of his glass. "This demon is mine. I will live and die with it."_

As he looked at his mentor's calm face, Crawford knew. The smiling lips and the liquid eyes and the sigh of relief ― he had seen the very future Komarov was talking about.

His mentor's death.

_You will kill me._ Not you _must_ kill me. You _will_ kill me. A prediction, not a command.

"You always knew it would come to this," Crawford whispered.

Komarov smiled fondly. He said nothing, but the warm kiss he left on Crawford's forehead in between the eyes spoke louder than any words ever could. Between precognitives, some things didn't need to be said out loud.

The implications were staggering. Komarov had spent all these years preparing Crawford — to be his executioner.

Komarov's lips lingered on Crawford's forehead. "Make me proud, Brad," he murmured. "Set me free."

Something swelled inside Crawford, filling his lungs, preventing him from speaking or even breathing. He opened his mouth uselessly. Nothing came out.

Komarov gave one last squeeze to Crawford's arm. "It's time."

He let go and stepped back. The resulting space between them was like a black hole trying to suck Crawford in. After a few steps worth of stumbling, Crawford regained his balance — but not his breath. His mind still swelled with anxious questions and confused thoughts and feelings he didn't dare name.

But Komarov had spoken the magic words.

_It's time._

_Make me proud, Brad._

Slowly but surely, the black suit straightened itself out and put itself back together once more. Crawford raised his chin and opened his eyes. Komarov gave one approving look up and down his body, then whirled around on his heels. Crawford watched him walk briskly to the door.

_This demon is mine. I will live and die with it._

_You will kill me._

Crawford flexed his shaking fingers. One and half decades' worth of memories spun around in his head like a hurricane, but he kept his heart at the centre of the storm. In the still, quiet, calm place where future waited.

_This is the way._

_Set me free._

_You will do it._

Like a prediction. But as Crawford watched his mentor's lean, tall figure, so calm and collected and filled to the brim with purpose, he knew that it was a command.

It would have to be.

Komarov raised his hand towards the scanner at the side of the door. He paused.

"One more thing." Komarov turned his head like he was about to glance over his shoulder. But his eyes remained with the floor. Shadows swallowed his face. "Your telepath... you need to know... Adelbert was much like him once. He..." Komarov's voice died with a gulp. The rest of his words were nearly inaudible, like the confession of a guilty man. "The love of a telepath can be a deadly pleasure. They won't ever really let you go."

Crawford moistened his lips. He didn't have to ask what Komarov meant. He was thinking about how a particular pair of blue eyes and a shock of wild red hair looked like when framed by cushions.

"You mean Sch..." He swallowed the rest. The sounds that made up the name simply refused to manifest in context of the dirty word Komarov had used — _love._

_It's not love._ But his mind cycled through a hundred yesterdays. He kept thinking about how losing Schuldig made him feel less than whole, more than broken. The damned telepath had crept in and made a home in his head, and when he wasn't there, something was missing. Love wasn't the word he would have chosen to describe this addiction, but did the label matter when the need was there?

Komarov's voice was hollow. "Adelbert was my monster. See to it that Schuldig won't become yours."

With that, Komarov began the process of opening the door. Behind him, Crawford stood in silence. All words were lodged deep in his throat. So deep that he might never swallow ― or speak ― past them again.


	14. My Monster

**Author's Notes:** Aaaand posting spree is over - we are all caught up with my stack of chapters written so far. (More is coming though, of course. The story isn't over.)

* * *

**- MINDS -**

**Chapter Nine  
:: my monster ::**

A quiet, steady bleeping was the only sound in the small Rosenkreuz laboratory room. A dim light painted everything with an ugly shade of pale green. Different types of equipment lined the walls. In the middle stood two metallic operating tables, surrounded by various medical implements and devices, including the source of the bleeping ― a large machine with multiple lights and a bright monitor. A man in a uniform was standing in front of the monitor, observing the information flashing on the screen as the machine measured the vital signs of the body lying on his side on one of the operating tables.

The body had bright sunset hair peeking out from under a snug-fitting cap that covered most of his head. A bundle of wires were sticking out of the cap. The young man was completely naked, with a catheter attached to his lower back and a drip on his arm. He was hooked up to most of the machines surrounding him via several electrodes and wires. His eyes were closed and he looked like he was sleeping and relaxed, except for one hand that was balled into a fist, clutching what appeared to be a crumbled piece of paper.

The door at the other end of the room hissed open. A tall, grey-haired woman stepped in. She looked sour, displeased and bored as she walked across the room, her piercing eyes fixed on the young man on the table.

"Perfect timing, Beth," said the head supervisor of Rosenkreuz, never lifting his eyes from the monitor. "He is ready. What of the child?"

"I just finished with her, mein Herr." She stopped near the table. Her eyes lingered on the young man's face.

"Any problems?" Dietrich tapped the keyboard, bringing out a new screen with different numbers. He examined them with a concentrated expression.

"None, mein Herr."

Dietrich glanced at the pale face of the young man. "Did you hear that, my pet?" he murmured. "Everything is proceeding according to plan."

The woman stared at the thin, unmoving lips and the closed, unmoving eyelids and the entire quiet, unmoving figure on the operating table. Slowly, she raised her eyes and looked at the man across the table from under her brows. Shadows swallowed Dietrich's features, except for the cheekbones and the tip of his nose, which were bathed in the eerie green light. His grey eyes were shining, his lips pulled to a exuberant smile.

Her upper lip curled in disgust. "Was that all, mein Herr?" she inquired dryly.

Dietrich nodded and waved her the permission to leave, never looking up from Schuldig's face. She presented a polite bow in order to comply with protocol, then turned around. She ghosted across the room, but before she had passed through the door, she heard a voice.

"Oh, just one other thing, Beth."

She paused. "Yes, mein Herr?"

"You will be well rewarded for your service." He looked up slowly. His voice was deceptively soft. Dangerous like a coiled viper wrapped in silk. "You believe me, don't you?"

She kept staring at the door. "Of course, mein Herr."

"Liar," he whispered. "You are only so obliging because Dmitri talked you into this."

She did not move. Her eyes remained fixed on the door, her shoulders rigid, her posture forbidding. She said nothing.

Dietrich straightened his back. He turned back to the monitor. "That's all right, Beth," he said pleasantly. "Tell you what. I'll let you have him. Once we're done, I'll have no use for him any more. Would you like me to make him fall in love with you? I could probably arrange something. He does care for you. Although..." He gave a dirty laugh. "You're on your own trying to inspire his fire in bed. Your particular graces..." He glanced at her and let his gaze drop on her body. "Appealing as they are, they aren't really what he's looking for."

She wheeled around on her heels. Her nostrils flared and her eyes shot ice bullets at him from across the room. "You..!"

He met her eyes with a hungry, dark gleam. "Yes, Beth?" he whispered. He stepped out from behind the monitor and started to walk closer. "What about me? You've never thought much of me. Why is that? Was it because you noticed the way Dmitri looked at me since day one? Were you so jealous?"

He stalked closer, closer, closer. Her mouth formed a tense line, she didn't speak. He chuckled.

"Oh, you've carried that torch for all these years..." He clicked his tongue and shook his head as he stopped in front of her. "You could have done so much better, Beth."

She cocked a challenging eyebrow at him. "Such as you?"

He flashed a lazy smile at her. "You were a beautiful woman. Unlike Dmitri, I would have known how to appreciate that."

"You think you're God's gift on earth." She shook her head. "But you're nothing but a spiteful child who wants to hurt the world because he thinks it'll make him feel better." Her eyes fell on the body on the table. "You should have his name," she said with a choked, frustrated voice. "I hope some day you'll understand―"

"Understand what?" Dietrich whispered softly. He stepped forward and reached out a hand to touch her cheek. "That I've ruined the man you loved?"

She pulled away and shot a furious look at him. "He could have been so much more!" she hissed. "His love for you... oh! I don't understand how a man like him could..!" She shook her head in disgust. "It's unnatural!"

His eyes flashed. His smile vanished. "Unnatural?" he whispered. "What's so unnatural about his love for me? I offered him comfort when he needed it. When no one else could."

She shook her head. He closed the distance between their bodies, intruding on her space, forcing her to take another several steps back until she was standing with her back against the wall. His eyes did not relinquish her for a second.

"I don't understand you, Beth," he said thoughtfully. "I've looked after you. You have been much more comfortable since I became the head supervisor of Rosenkreuz. I've done so much for you. And yet you hate me... why is that? Only because I stole away a heart that was never yours in the first place?"

She shook her head again, but she was not trying to move away. She was transfixed by his intent eyes. "You..." Her voice died with a choked breath as his hand suddenly lunged forward and grabbed a hold of her throat. With one hand on her cheek and the other throttling her, he leaned in and pressed his lips to her ear.

"You know he could never have loved you," Dietrich hissed. "It's not in him to love you. It's not his fault. But why is it mine? I didn't make him the way he is. Would you have hated every man who stole his heart with this same passion, or am I just... that..." he chuckled, "...special?"

She closed her eyes and tried to swallow past his tight hold of her throat. She did not even try to speak.

"Just me, then? Hmm. I wonder... I wonder." He gave a thoughtful pause, breathing in her barely detectable scent. She never wore any perfume, yet there was always that certain smell ― her shampoo. The only thing about her that had any taste, any flavour at all. He closed his eyes. "Ah, but it's all right." He gave a quiet laugh. "You're only human." Still chortling, he left a kiss on her cheek. "I forgive you, Beth."

Her face twisted in anger and disgust. "You... beast," she hissed hoarsely.

He laughed. He looked like he was about to say something else, but his expression changed before he had opened his mouth. He looked like he was listening for a moment, then...

"Mm. They are here." He released her and disappeared like a ghost, sweeping across the room back to the operating table and the monitor. Without looking back over his shoulder, he concentrated on the monitor. "You are excused, Beth," he said. "You may leave the child unattended. I'll have Dmitri bring her in when it's time."

She touched her throat and glowered at him from under her brows. But without a word, she wheeled around and disappeared through the door like a dark thundercloud.

A tiny smile curved Dietrich's lips and another quiet laugh escaped from his throat. He was still laughing softly when another door opened and the pair of precognitives walked in. He didn't look up, not even when both of them presented the bows as dictated by protocol ― bows which he would have demanded, had they not been offered willingly.

"Did you have a nice chat with the old ones?" he inquired before either of them had opened their mouths.

"We have their blessing," said Komarov briefly.

Dietrich looked up, his eyes shining eagerly. His eye fell over the pale complexion and slightly dilated pupils of the younger black-haired precognitive who was standing a little too rigid. Dietrich raised a curious eyebrow.

"So bothered, Oracle," he mused. "Surely you realised that they would demand that I attempt to erase all sensitive information?"

Crawford didn't even twitch at the revelation that Dietrich had so detailed information about the meeting with the Elders. Dietrich's smile faded a little. Frustratingly collected, this one. As usual.

"Of course, Herr Dietrich. I'm merely worried about what the missing information might do to the team dynamics," came the reply. Punctual and respectful.

Just like it would be every day from now on. The mere thought returned the smile on Dietrich's lips.

"Don't worry," he mused. "I'll tread carefully. Perhaps I'll even spare a memory or two. Hmm? As a favour to you."

At last, a reaction! Crawford's jaws moved and he looked away. Dietrich delighted in the taste of hurt which the precognitive would never admit existed.

"He will need to pass the Elders' examination," Komarov noted. "You cannot leave anything obvious."

"Not to worry," Dietrich murmured. "Not to worry." His lips were curved to an amused smile as he directed a sly look at Crawford from under his brows. "Well, Oracle? Are you ready to be reunited with your telepath?"

Crawford did not move immediately. "What should I do, Herr Dietrich?"

Dietrich motioned towards another operating table next to the redhead. "We'll need to properly record the operation for the Elders' benefit. We'll also give you a drug that will help you open your mind. Then all you need to do is lie down and let me connect your mind with your telepath's."

Dietrich expected a question or a dozen ― but without a word, the precognitive started to walk closer. Crawford stopped near the operating tables. Dietrich watched from under his brows as Crawford's eye fell on the paper ball Schuldig held in his fist.

"I couldn't make him let go of it," Dietrich murmured, making sure to sound just slightly bothered.

Just enough to feed that flicker of hope.

Crawford leaned over and touched Schuldig's hand. The redhead's fingers reacted to the touch, relinquishing the death grip of the paper ball. Crawford caught it and unwrapped it. He took a single look at the text inside before crunching the paper in his fist.

Dietrich knew exactly what was written in it. A single well-placed word. _Come._

"Take off your jacket and shirt," Dietrich said pleasantly. He indicated a small chair near the operating table. "Put them over there."

Crawford threw the paper from his hand. Without a word, he began to undress.

A tiny smile tugged at the corner of Dietrich's mouth as he watched every jerky motion. It was years since he had seen this particular precognitive so bothered.

Crawford removed his jacket, shirt, holster and tie and folded them carefully into a pile on the small chair.

"Sit down, Oracle," Dietrich commanded as Crawford placed his glasses on top of the pile.

Crawford turned to the operating table. His muscles rippled with the intention to take an obedient step forward, but his feet never completed the act. He balled his hands to fists. His face went flaccid and he stared right past the operating table with wide eyes.

Past, indeed. Dietrich couldn't catch anything specific, but he was convinced that he knew exactly where Crawford's mind had escaped. The precognitive had been examined extensively after the forest incident. Dietrich had read the reports.

The telepath's smile faded a little. "It's all right, Oracle," he said softly. "We'll take a little trip. That's all. It won't hurt a bit."

Dietrich watched Crawford's muscles ripple, he watched the young man flex his fingers, lift his chin and struggle his way through the swelling suspicions and traumatic memories. Not a sound escaped, not a single renegade panicked thought surfaced. Crawford kept the deck from falling apart. Dietrich admired the quiet, composed creature that finally made it to the operating table.

While the younger precognitive climbed on the table, the older one hovered near the door through which Beth had disappeared. Dietrich glanced at his partner. He delivered a mental command and Komarov started to walk closer.

Dietrich dropped his eyes on Schuldig's pale face. His smile deepened.

Komarov reached the table. He picked up a syringe from a small tray. Komarov tested its weight in one hand while grabbing Crawford's arm with the other. The young man didn't react at all to the short prick of the needle penetrating the skin on his upper arm.

Once he had administered the drug, Komarov picked up an electrode cap. As he began to fit the cap onto Crawford's head, Dietrich circled around the operating table to get closer. He passed his hand over Crawford's face. The young man didn't even blink.

"Such a shame, Oracle," Dietrich murmured. "You didn't need to lose your eyesight in order for your powers to ascend to the next level. Had you remained faithful to me, none of this would have ever happened."

Crawford said nothing. He kept staring into the distance.

Dietrich didn't push for a response. He picked up a small plastic rod with a cotton bud at one end. Twirling it in between his fingers, he waited until Komarov was done with positioning the cap, then he poked the cotton bud into one of the holes in the cap near Crawford's temple. He wasn't particularly gentle about cleaning the scalp before applying conductive cream and sticking the electrode in place.

Crawford remained quiet and still as the two older men went about preparing him. They were obviously well practised with the procedure. It didn't take long until all the dozens and dozens of electrodes were attached, at which point Dietrich returned to the monitor. He tapped a few control keys to bring up Crawford's information. In the meantime, Komarov moved on to apply a drip and attach a few more electrodes to monitor Crawford's heart rate.

Crawford sat impassive throughout the entire procedure. His eyes slowly glazed over. The drug was beginning to have an effect.

"Good boy," Dietrich mused once Komarov was done with the preparations. "Lie down, Oracle. Make yourself comfortable."

Obediently, Crawford settled down on his back. Komarov's dark eyes watched his every movement like a hawk.

"Now, Oracle..." Dietrich's voice lowered to a hungry whisper. "Let's go find your telepath."

Crawford sensed the telepath's presence like a dark shadow falling over him. His first instinct was to jerk away, but he stilled the reflex. He closed his eyes. He lay quiet, his mind calm like a still pool waiting for a swimmer to dip his toes in the cool water.

Dietrich licked his lips and leaned in closer, closer, closer to the edge of the pool. A tiny flickering light appeared in his grey eyes.

"Concentrate," he instructed his victim. "Think about your telepath. He's waiting for you. Can't you hear it?"

Right on cue, Crawford heard a faint echo. A familiar voice that made his chest ache. _»__Come.__»_

He was thinking about the red hair and the warm body that were lying right next to him. He had spent so many nights alone on so many beds that weren't his. Never his, because something was missing. And now it was so close.

So close.

_»__Come.__»_

An instinct got Crawford's hand to twitch.

"That's right," whispered a silken voice. "Touch him. It will enhance the connection."

Hesitating yet eager, Crawford let his hand continue moving. Unlike on those countless nights he had woken up alone reaching for an empty pillow, this time his hand made contact.

_»Come,»_ went the whisper in his head. He couldn't distinguish it from reality. Wasn't it reality?

"Come."

Crawford turned his head to look.

He met a pair of blue eyes. Bright. Shining, eerily focused, and the smile! The amused twist of the mouth so familiar, whispering...

"Crawford."

_Hey, Crawford._

_Fuck you, Crawford._

_Crawford__―__Crawford__―__Crawford__―_

His name had been on Schuldig's lips a hundred times, until in the end...

_Oh, look... Crawford._

It was the last thing Schuldig ever said. His name. Crawford's breath no longer wanted out of his chest. Schuldig was speaking his name over and over again. Time itself stopped in order to listen.

_Crawford. Come._

The world disappeared, and there was only Schuldig's voice and Schuldig's eyes, calling him. Calling him forever, into infinity ― the place where Schuldig had slipped like sand from Crawford's hands.

But not now. Not this time. Crawford would hold on and not let him go. Not this time.

Dietrich watched Crawford's fingers clenching around Schuldig's wrist. The precognitive held on so tight that his knuckles turned white.

Schuldig's eyes were fixed on Crawford's. His mouth opened simultaneously with Dietrich's. Both telepaths whispered...

"Come."

"I'm here, Schuldig," came the reply. Crawford's eyes had lost all expression. He was hanging onto Schuldig's hand, seeing nothing but those two blue pools. He wanted to reach past them right into eternity.

To catch the ghost that haunted him.

But what lurked beneath those blue pools was not the ghost but the devil. A triumphant smile twisted Dietrich's face, giving him a demonic aspect. The eerie green light emanating from the lamp above transformed Dietrich's face into a monstrous mask. His grey eyes were lit by a faint, unnatural glow.

From behind him, Komarov floated over to his partner. Dietrich smiled when the precognitive's warm body pressed up against him.

"Oh, Dmitri. Look," the telepath gloated. "Look at them, Dmitri. Look."

Crawford didn't react.

"I'm looking, Adelbert." The Russian's breath was warm on Dietrich's neck. Steady, yet slightly agitated warm puffs. "I'm looking. Are you?"

Dietrich frowned. But before he had opened his mouth to question the strange comment, he felt a grip on his left arm. He was whirled around and the warm body that had been behind him was now in front of him, bringing them chest to chest, invading Dietrich's space and stealing his attention. Komarov's hand found Dietrich's hair. The precognitive's long, bony fingers twined with the black strands.

"Look at them, Adelbert. Look at what they are. Remember what we used to be. What we could have been." The plead was heated. Passionate, famished.

Everything that Dmitri Komarov had not been in years.

"Listen to me, Adelbert," Komarov whispered, and his mouth came rushing up like a tidal wave, connecting with Dietrich's mouth.

It was years since the last time the tide had turned this way. Dietrich's entire body reacted to the surprise, but he didn't push Komarov away. None of his limbs knew what they were doing or wanted to do as Komarov's hungry lips claimed his breath. His mouth responded automatically.

The memories moved on the tips of their tongues. The telepath's body almost gave in. Almost moved with the memories.

Almost.

With a gasp and a shake of the head, Dietrich pulled away. He blinked rapidly, but opening his eyes didn't release him from yesterday, it only delivered him deeper as he met his partner's eyes. The dark pits consumed the grey glaciers, intent, purposeful, not asking but demanding Dietrich's attention.

"Maybe it started as a lie." Komarov's mouth refused to leave the vicinity of his partner's lips. He squeezed Dietrich's uniform in his trembling fist. "But later, Adelbert? There was something real in you." His eyes searched Dietrich's eyes as he demanded, "Wasn't there?"

Stubbornly, Dietrich shook his head. "You don't really believe that," he argued. "You're just trying to pull some number on me again." He narrowed his eyes. "What is it? What are you trying to do?"

"Teach you, Adelbert. Teach you." Komarov didn't relinquish his partner's eyes for a second. "That's all I've ever tried to do."

Click, their buttons connected. Dietrich's undecided eyes flicked back and forth between Komarov's. He was frozen, his head pulled back a little too far in a little too pronounced attempt to escape though his body didn't follow the intention. His tongue swept over his lips to wet them with one quick flick. Dietrich's body hung in between two movements ― one forward, the other back. He hung between the past and the present. A third direction tried to surface; the future, but he couldn't choose which way his body should go to find that path.

The dark eyes promised him that they knew the way. They had always known.

"Tell me there's something more than hate in you, Adelbert." The dark eyes gleamed with liquid. Komarov's voice lowered to a barely audible whisper. "Tell me it's not too late."

Dietrich's argument was subdued. "Would it matter if I said it, Dmitri? You wouldn't believe me. You haven't believed me since..." His voice faded.

Komarov raised one eyebrow. "Yes, Adelbert? Since what? You still can't admit it?" Komarov's fingers moved to collect more and more black hair, closer and closer to the silver highlights near Dietrich's temple.

As his thumb brushed over the white-grey strand, Dietrich shivered.

"Still can't say it was your fault?" Komarov murmured.

Dietrich closed his eyes. His entire face twisted with pain and anger. He kept shaking his head.

"Your fault, moy bies. You broke my mind. You took everything from me. My monster..." Komarov's hands searched for a hold of Dietrich's head, searched for something to hold far deeper, behind those defences and beneath the cold surface. The eerie pale green light glistened on the tears that fell down Komarov's cheeks. "I know you'll never be sorry." His thumb continued to stroke the white-grey hair near Dietrich's temple gently. "But if I can forgive you... will you stop this madness?"

Dietrich's eyes flashed open. His dilated pupils betrayed his upset, stirred, disturbed reaction to Komarov's offer. The ice sculpture melted a little. Dietrich's undecided hands discovered a hundred old, abandoned paths up Komarov's uniform. His mouth opened... but nothing came out.

Without another word, Komarov cupped the back of Dietrich's head and pulled him closer. The telepath's eyes dropped to his partner's mouth in anticipation of another kiss. His fingers clasped Komarov's uniform. His parted lips hung in between two futures. One he had selected for himself. And the other, but a breath away offered to him like an outstretched hand from the past.

In that second or two, that slow-motion moment before Komarov's lips connected with his own, Dietrich's gaze fell. From Komarov's lips to his uniform and the brightly shining buttons and from there irresistibly to follow the black shadow that he saw from the corner of his eye.

Black hair. A splash of fierce orange-red. Two young men, their eyes locked.

A slight frown creased Crawford's forehead. Like perhaps he was stirring. Waking from the dream where he could hear his telepath calling him.

And Dietrich's attention was drawn back to the telepathic bond that was about to slip from his grasp. With a growl, Dietrich yanked his entire body free. He shoved the precognitive so violently that Komarov fell on his back on the floor.

Dietrich glared down at his partner. "You think I'd give it all up for you," he hissed. "There was a time that might have worked. But I know you don't believe a word of what you've just said. You're trying to play me. Like you've been doing all these years! You chose Oracle so that he would be pulled into all this. You knew I wouldn't be able to resist after you told me how powerful he would become. Don't you think I know what you've been trying to do? What, you think you can give my kingdom to your precious boy? You think he'll make me kneel yet?"

Komarov rose up only just enough to support his elbows to the floor. He stared blankly into the distance. "I'm only trying to save you from yourself," he said quietly. "It's what I've always..."

Angrily, Dietrich cut him off. "You think I'll make another mistake? You think it cannot be done? You've seen it! It can be done!"

The light dimmed from Komarov's eyes. "At what price, Adelbert?"

"Price?" Dietrich's voice trembled with rage. "You talk to me about price? You're the one who's determined the price for us. We could have it all! Together!" He took a step forward. "If you stand with me." He reached out his hand.

Komarov didn't turn enough to even look at the outstretched hand behind him.

Dietrich kept waiting.

"I told you, Adelbert. I don't want your castle in the sand." Komarov balled his hands to fists. "A man cannot build anything that the tide of time won't wash away."

"Some men can find a way to stop the tide." Dietrich's hand was trembling. "You showed me how. We can do it together. Stand with me, Dmitri."

"No farther," Komarov refused hoarsely. "I will follow you no farther."

Dietrich's hand fell. Slowly. The expression in his eyes might have been pity. The turn of his mouth certainly belied hurt.

Komarov's fists trembled against the floor. "For once in your life, see what you already have and not what you are still missing." He swallowed. "If you never learned anything else from me, I would that you learn that."

The pity and the hurt on Dietrich's face transformed into disgust. "You disappoint me." He balled his hand to a fist. "You always have."

Komarov closed his eyes.

With a sneer, the telepath shook his head. "Excuse me, Dmitri." He turned back to the two operating tables. "I have an appointment with destiny." He didn't look at his partner as he commanded, "Go fetch the girl, Dmitri." His voice was cold.

Behind him, Komarov opened his eyes. More tears sprinkled off his eyelashes and fell down his cheeks. Without a word, he started to pick himself up off the floor. He looked over his shoulder. His hand moved over on top of the gun hanging on his belt.

At this, Dietrich glanced over his shoulder. He raised a challenging brow.

Komarov's hand closed around the grip of the gun.

A cold smile rippled over Dietrich's lips. "Good for you, Dmitri," he murmured. "Showing some backbone. I'm proud of you." He nodded towards the door at the back of the room. "Now quit playing around and go do your job."

Komarov squeezed the gun convulsively. Dietrich narrowed his eyes. Komarov's face twisted with pain as his partner's telepathic energy sank its claws into his mind. All expression crumbled away from Komarov's eyes like old paint off walls of a haunted house. His hand fell from the gun, limp and useless.

Useless like all Komarov's objections. He turned around slowly and walked over to the door. Dietrich turned back to the precognitive lying quietly on the operating table, so deep in the telepathic trance that he wasn't aware of anything that was going on around him. Dietrich's hand hovered over Crawford's face.

"A shame," he whispered and closed his eyes. "Such a shame."

His fingertips made contact with Crawford's temple.


	15. Your Fault Or Your Failure?

**Author's Notes: **My apologies for the long gap between posts. Working on several stories at once is taking its toll what comes to speed of progress.

* * *

**- MINDS -**

**Chapter Ten  
:: your fault or your failure? ::**

_"Crawford, do you think we're alive?"_

_Crawford glanced over his shoulder. Schuldig stood near the door of Crawford's office with one hand stuck deep in the pocket of his green coat, the other hanging by his side, clutching a gun. Crawford's eyes travelled down the tall, sulking figure. He gave several long seconds worth of thought to his answer. _

_"For now. Yes."_

_Schuldig was facing the window. The blinds were closed, warding off the world. Schuldig looked right through them, with eyes vibrant, keen, searching for something. "You don't think every murder takes away a little bit of your own life?"_

_Crawford harrumphed. "I've told you to stay away from churches." Schuldig always got into these moods when he listened to priests and believers._

_Schuldig shook his head, and the lamplight from Crawford's desk played in his hair like flickers of firelight. _

_The pause stretched on in the infinite moment where they weren't talking about the same thing, and they didn't really want to meet in the middle. They kept "not speaking" like enough silence might mend their intentions and bring them peace. It was quiet kind of communication going nowhere._

_Crawford broke the pattern before it got solid. He got up and walked over. Schuldig's body reacted with increasing tension that warned Crawford off from making too intimate contact, and so Crawford contended himself to stopping and letting only his hand move. He found Schuldig's wrist. As Crawford's fingers made contact with Schuldig's bare skin, a shiver passed through his body and his finger flexed on the trigger of the gun. Crawford took care not to touch the weapon. His hand wandered up Schuldig's arm, then gave Schuldig's shoulder a secure squeeze that lingered._

_"Every murder makes me remember that I'm alive," Crawford said._

_Schuldig's lips twisted into a savage smile. His eyes moved to the window. He raised his gun slowly and pointed the muzzle near the lower right corner, then tracked a horizontal line. Crawford could not see anything through the closed blinds._

_But Schuldig could hear, and a talented telepath in his prime never misplaced his victims. There was somebody walking outside past the window._

_"Shall I make you remember now?"_

_"Why would you?"_

_Schuldig laughed. "Why not?" The blue eyes flicked in Crawford's direction. "Shall I give you life, Crawford?" he whispered. "My life?"_

_Crawford met his eyes but not his mind ― he didn't understand._

_"Crawford." Schuldig fixed him with his tone and with his unsmiling eyes that gleamed at him from under a thick shock of red. "They're in my head. They're inside me. They *are* me. Every death takes away a little piece of me." His thumb slid on the sleek cold metal that would soon be warmer if he pulled the trigger. "So shall I give you my life?" A quiet, chilling laugh rippled out. "My life, in exchange for yours, Crawford?"_

_Crawford moved. He found Schuldig's green jacket, found places to hold on, found Schuldig's ear, and he was close, closer than he had been invited. "I have never asked..."_

_"You're asking every day."_

_"Their orders, not mine."_

_"Bullshit." _

_Schuldig swivelled on his heels, yanked the gun away from the window like pulling a blade out of a wound, and shoved the muzzle into Crawford's stomach. His other hand never emerged from the pocket, he was resting his weight on one leg only, his head flopped over to one side, keeping a gleaming cold eye on every movement of the fine white suit from under his brows. _

_"You're not killing only because you have to," Schuldig hissed._

_Crawford stood still, various parts of the green jacket held well and secure in his hands. His eyes were harsh, his words harsher, "Neither are you."_

_"It's different." Schuldig's eyes held Crawford's. "Taking a life excites you. Blood excites you. Every murder excites you because killing gives you power over life and death."_

_Crawford waited, dared Schuldig to bring the comparison to its inevitable end._

_"You think you're stronger than death. You fucking psychopath." The muzzle of the gun poked in from between the buttons of Crawford's jacket, digging its way in under the jacket, under the shirt, seeking flesh. Schuldig's eyelids fell, he closed his eyes. "You're a textbook case, Crawford."_

_Crawford yanked Schuldig's body closer, bringing their bodies to touch. Click, their buttons said. _

_"And you kill, because you want to die with them," Crawford proposed firmly, certain of his business. "You want to die with them, because afterwards you are resurrected every time." Crawford tilted his head to the side. His eyes were shining. Like his voice, they were honey and gold. "It's like a drug for you. Life is so much sweeter for you once you've tasted death. How are you so different?"_

_Another pause. Then a soft laugh rolled out of Schuldig's throat. A rueful smile curved his lips. Schuldig's hand left the pocket. He draped his arm over Crawford's shoulder. The cold muzzle of his gun was slowly becoming warmer against Crawford's skin, and Schuldig bowed his head, resting his forehead against Crawford's. He chuckled for a while, then his smile faded. _

_"Fuck you," he muttered bitterly. "Maybe we're alive for now, but..." He frowned. "It's coming, isn't it?" Schuldig opened his eyes suddenly, the brilliant blue fixed the honey and gold with intent and purpose. "Death for us. You've seen it."_

_Crawford was silent. Schuldig's agitated breaths warmed Crawford's lips._

_"I don't want to know, Crawford," the telepath whispered. "I don't want to know when. Or how." He didn't move his eyes from Crawford's quiet face. "If you see it, promise me that you won't tell me. Promise me..." Schuldig's voice faded away. His lips were parted, the space in between wanting to be filled with words, yet his tongue was frozen in dread of each one that might form._

_Crawford said not a word, but his mouth answered. He consumed Schuldig's voice, he sucked in Schuldig's breath, and he brought the discussion to the end with a fierce kiss, a prelude to a dance that might bring death to them both._

The memory dissolved, and the warmth in his arms disappeared. Crawford blinked rapidly even as he felt a touch on his shoulders. Two hands wound around him like snakes. A warm body pressed up against him.

"You kept your promise, you bastard." A voice from behind him. Warm breaths in his ear. "You never warned me."

Crawford's breath got locked in his lungs. That voice, that familiar intonation, every hard sound rolling like a purr...

"Schuldig?"

A laugh rolled out. Crawford turned his head. He caught a glimpse of fierce red. He wheeled around on his heels. A tall, lean young man in his early twenties was standing but a couple of paces away, looking at him, his hands behind his back, his blue eyes gleaming in the middle of a serious face framed by a wild, every-which-way red mop. Crawford's hands started to shake as his eyes devoured the sight.

"Schuldig."

The red mop flicked sideways, Schuldig cocked his head like a curious dog. "Was that what happened, Crawford?" he whispered. "You saw my death but you didn't warn me because I told you I didn't want to know? Huh? Was it your design?" The thin lips pulled to a smile, the whisper turned into a hiss, "Your fault?"

Those words struck a cold icicle right through Crawford's chest. He didn't know what he wanted to say, what he should say. He choked. All he could do was stare. He couldn't take his eyes off the apparition. The green coat, the blue eyes, the red hair, all of Schuldig's primary colours, so alive.

Alive. Crawford tried to swallow the lump in his throat.

"You're alive," he said, his voice hoarse, barely audible. He meant it as an argument and an excuse, _You're alive, so it's all right_ and even as a plead, _Tell me you're alive._

_Tell me it's really you._

Schuldig held his eyes and said nothing. Seconds stretched on to infinity, turning into minutes that felt like hours, and time moved ever so slowly, slowly. It felt like days before Crawford found his voice again.

"I've come for you," he offered hoarsely. "I'm here."

Schuldig inclined his head, it might have been a nod. He kept staring.

Crawford could not face the intense blue. He took a look around. He discovered that he was looking at an even, empty surface. They were standing on what appeared to be a floor in the middle of nowhere. He caught only more of the same. Nothing in sight, nothing but air that faded into grey mist as though they were standing on a podium inside a cloud.

Crawford turned his eyes on the telepath again, suddenly more alert. "Where are we?"

Though, what he was really more interested in was, _when_ were they? Standing in an office with Schuldig talking about death had been a memory. But this was no memory, yet it didn't have the composition of a true vision, either. So was this a dream in the present moment? The last place Crawford remembered being in was an operating room in Rosenkreuz laboratories. He had been reaching out for Schuldig. Dietrich had said they would go fetch his telepath.

Was this some telepathically created reality?

Schuldig gave an inviting sort of a nod. "Come."

Though Crawford's feet wanted nothing more than to walk to the telepath and touch him, his defences kept him standing still and repeating his question, "Where are we?"

He simply wasn't sure if he would be able to handle another disappointment. To reach out for Schuldig's body, again, and touch nothing, again? No. He held back, held still, his feet firmly and evenly on the platform, just watching. Watching Schuldig, like he had watched him when he had been alive, watched him when he was dead.

Maybe he would watch forever.

A wicked glint appeared in Schuldig's eyes. He motioned with one hand. "Come." Then he turned around and started to walk.

Crawford had to make a decision. Stay here, or follow. He did not want to follow Schuldig-who-was-not-Schuldig, yet... this _was_ Schuldig ― this strange kind of cold shoulder was typical of Schuldig when he wanted to get back at Crawford for an offence, and what could be a greater offence than letting Schuldig die?

Crawford kept standing still, until Schuldig's body began to fade into the grey mist. His feet could resist no longer. He took a few running steps to catch up, but as soon as he started to move, he fell through the floor. His stomach lurched, his limbs went numb as the flash of red disappeared out of sight, swallowed by the grey mist.

"Schuldig!" he cried out.

Whomp! A pair of arms broke his fall. The impact struck the air out of his lungs. The body that pressed up against him from behind was freezing cold, and the arms held him too tight! Crawford gasped for breath but he couldn't feel his lungs ― his mouth opened uselessly but his chest never expanded for an inhale.

"It wasn't really a promise, was it?" hissed Schuldig's voice. Hot breaths in Crawford's ear, panting, urgent and angry. "You never really said that you wouldn't warn me. You just let me believe that's what you meant. That's how you operate. It's safer for you, huh? That way, if something goes wrong, you can just tell me I was wrong, I misunderstood. You can tell yourself it's not your fault." A cold laugh. "So was it your fault that I never knew I would die, Crawford? Did you let me die? Or did you..." Schuldig's voice lowered to a choked whisper. "Just. Seriously. Not. See. It?"

Every word cut a wound straight through.

Schuldig's voice kept whispering. "Your fault or your failure, Crawford?"

Crawford shook his head. He kept struggling for air but the arms around him held him like chains, pulling him down. He was drowning, sinking into the depths of a vast and bottomless ocean. It was not an entirely unfamiliar feeling. Back in the forest, the explosion had thrown him right into water off the deck of the yacht, and even with the life buoy, it had taken him a moment to get back to the surface. The sensation together with Schuldig's words threw him right back into the past, into that painful moment when everything had went wrong.

_Your fault or your failure?_

"Which is it?" hissed the voice in his ears. "Tell me!"

His eyes and his mouth hanging wide open, Crawford kept sinking, sinking ― deeper and deeper into painful memories. He had been so well prepared. Life buoy in the right place. Their location, close to the railing so that they could easily jump once it was time. He had told Schuldig to duck, he had taken out the man who would have shot the telepath. Everything had been going according to plan.

And then it had all fallen apart. A single unforeseen event had thrown his future utterly off course. One single missed detail... one single mistake.

Crawford was ultimately the architect of his own downfall. He had installed the explosives below deck while Schuldig had been busy with killing their primary target. He had planned to let Schuldig blow up the yacht from the shore. From a safe distance with the flick of a switch.

He had never foreseen that the accursed shot which did not kill Schuldig set off the chain of blasts and triggered the explosives prematurely.

The failure to foresee the explosion had led him to making other mistakes. He had let the fever take control, let his fears dictate his decisions. He had misinterpreted his vision in the forest ― the vision of hearing the doctors telling him that because they could not discover the cause of his blindness, they were not able to fix it, the vision of hearing them tell him that he would never see with his own eyes again, the vision of hearing the officers telling him that they would keep him in the laboratory, the vision of himself tied up and helpless, screaming.

Screaming forever.

How was he to know it would be temporary? In his compromised state, he had believed that he would be saving them both. He had shared with Schuldig in order to make sure the telepath would have enough information to make it on his own after Crawford was gone. For himself, he had seen salvation only in death.

He had always meant to save them both ― from his first mistake to his last one. But intentions cannot change facts.

_Your fault or your failure?_

The truth was...

"Both," whispered Schuldig's hoarse voice. "It's both, isn't it? Your fault and your failure. You didn't mean to get me killed, but it was your fault."

Crawford was paralysed. He was no longer struggling for breath or for freedom. Iron chains pulled him deeper and deeper. He became colder and colder, as cold as the body pressing up against him, just like in the forest, when he had lost his future.

And just as he had lost his future then, he was quickly losing his will now. Punishing himself for so many nights in the silence of an empty bed had never broken him, but hearing the accusation from Schuldig took away something inside him, tore open a wound that was supposed to be long since healed.

It would never be healed. It was useless to even try to go on like this. His purpose was gone, his future lost.

"Make it up to me, Crawford," whispered the voice in his ears. "Make it up to us."

He ached for a way out of this senseless darkness that pulled him down, pulled him under, deeper and deeper into despair. His lips formed the word, thirsty for a way out ― "Yes."

And finally, the voice in his ears was smiling, smiling like it had before. "Do what I say."

"Yes," Crawford breathed out the word, and he tried to move his hands. His hands had touched that smile in the woods and magicked it into reality ― he wanted to touch again.

He groped through thin air.

"No. Not unless you let me in," came the hushed voice. "Like you did in the forest. Open your mind to me. I can use you as an anchor. You can pull me back." He heard the smile again. "Let me in, Crawford."

He needed to find the smile, he needed to fix this, he needed to make it all right ― like he always did. He needed to find Schuldig, he needed to bring him back, he needed to rediscover his purpose.

And he remembered, back in the forest...

_We are this._ Schuldig's voice. Warm bodies and pleasure and everything at the right time, in the right place.

Crawford kept reaching, fumbling for the familiar face that might as well be the last thing he touched, as long as he just got to feel those lips curving to a smile under his fingertips again. He remembered the way Schuldig had kissed him and the way silence had fallen inside itself and something in his chest had become more than the sum of its parts.

He let go.

"Yes..." whispered the voice, now laughing more than smiling. "Yes... yes... come!"

_Come!_

Crawford followed the call. And finally, his hands found the smile. His own mouth moved to match the curve.

"Schuldig," he whispered.

"Crawford," responded the smiling lips, and the next thing he knew, he was sinking and soaring simultaneously.

He could see Schuldig, a wicked smirk decorating his devious face. He could see Schuldig a thousand times over. Schuldig smiling, flicking a switch to blast a warehouse into oblivion, pulling the trigger to shoot a man dead, laughing as he did so, chewing on a cigarette with a twist of the mouth that gave his face a vicious aspect, telling him, "Why don't we just kill them all?"

This was Schuldig. Schuldig, who always asked "why not". Who needed a reason to stop rather than a cause to go. Who always had a thousand thoughts that took him everywhere and nowhere ― and with Schuldig, there was Crawford.

There was Crawford, who never did anything without a reason and whose purpose fuelled his plans. Crawford, who was all smoke and mirrors, who was as vast as the sky and as strong as the earth, whose feet were buried deep in the ground because if he let go, he would fall apart and disappear into infinity.

Visions of Schuldig flashed by too fast. He caught not one, but a thousand shadows from the past and from the future. The input overload blocked his capacity to process what he was seeing. He was vaguely aware of his own existence within the mess. The only thing that kept him grounded was the smile. The sensation of the curved mouth under his fingertips spread through his body as though the warm soft lips were everywhere, leaving sweet kisses throughout his body.

The pressure was building, the kisses became heated, the sensations changed shape ― like hot snakes twining around his body. Crawford remembered a nightmare from the past. Flames licking his body and cold metal around his wrists plastering him to a hard surface. An altar, and a warm, heavy crawling creature on top of his chest, touching him, kissing him, delivering sweet agony, setting him on fire. His brain was burning.

He started to shake his head. He tried to tear his hands free. He wanted out of this memory, this nightmare. He needed to get out.

"No, you need to go in," whispered a voice through the deafening crackling noise of the flames. "You need to remember where it started. That's where you'll find me."

_Rosenkreuz. Remember Rosenkreuz. Remember the beginning._

He didn't want to remember the fire from his nightmares, from his waking dreams. He didn't want to remember being killed until he knew he was alive only when he held death close to his chest and embraced the silence that followed. He didn't want to go back to the pain and the desolate quiet places, not his own, not Schuldig's. He didn't want to bring back the hell.

But he did want to bring back Schuldig.

His resistance died. He rested his head against the hard surface and lay silent under the thing that tried to tear through his chest. He choked on the smoke and the smell of sulphur.

He could choke if it meant that he could take back the mistakes he had made.

* * *

The man with long black hair stood in between three operating tables, clutching Schuldig's shoulder with one hand, holding a bloodied knife on top of Crawford's chest with the other. What had been but a faint, barely visible cross-shaped scar in the middle of Crawford's upper body was now a bleeding wound. The electrodes that had been connected to his chest were lying on the floor. Bright red trails meandered down over Crawford's twitching muscles. He gasped for breath. His face was blank and soulless, and though his eyes were locked with Schuldig's, he seemed to be staring at nothing.

His hand gripped Schuldig's wrist. Tight.

Every single medical instrument in the room was bleeping. The readings on the unattended monitors were going off the chart. The lights were flashing, crackling with bursts of electricity. The flickers threw writhing shadows over Dietrich's twisted face. His eyes seemed to be glowing, the silver highlights near his temples were shining. He was grinning, his teeth bared, a sinister laughter rippling deep from his throat.

Behind him, hovering on top of the third operating table, was a small red-haired figure ― a young girl, perhaps five years old. She was wearing a long white gown that floated about her as an unknown force tried to pull her body up off the table. Only the shackles on her ankles and wrists seemed to keep her down. Her head was hanging limp, her eyes were closed, her face contorted into a devilish grin that perfectly matched Dietrich's expression.

Her operating table was the only object standing in between Dietrich and the silent, brooding figure of Dmitri Komarov. The grey-haired precognitive stood impassive, his hands at his sides. He did not move, he barely even breathed, but his fingers were trembling. Tears streaked his face.

His dark, deep-set eyes were fixed onto his former apprentice.

"Yes, Dmitri, do look," hissed Dietrich. "Look! How he must disappoint you. He is lost in a fantasy of his own creation, he is making himself weak!" The telepath bared his teeth like an animal. "He is following his heart directly into my trap, and after all the trouble you went through to warn him, too! Ah, Dmitri! Who would have thought? Who would have thought..." He cackled harder and harder. "Who would have thought that the one to underestimate the power of love... was you!"

Komarov's upper lip curled to a sneer. Anger flashed in the dark eyes. His hand moved towards the gun hanging off his belt ― but the movement was jerky and his hand trembled as though someone held his wrist, trying to prevent him. Dietrich threw back his head, then looked over his shoulder.

"Oh... you would do it, Dmitri." Dietrich licked his lips. "Finally, you would do it, I can feel it!" His upper lip curled into a disgusted sneer that perfectly matched the one on Komarov's face. He shook his head. "But it's too late."

The girl on the operating table twitched. Her head snapped towards Komarov and her eyes flashed open. They were glowing with an unnatural light. Komarov's gun whipped out of the holster, whirled through the air and clattered onto the floor.

Dietrich barked out a laugh at Komarov's defeated expression.

"It's too late, Dmitri!" He dropped his gaze on the girl. "Even if you could fight me, you cannot fight her." His eyes wandered over her delicate features. Hunger distorted his face. "Oh Dmitri... the link is stable! Can't you feel it?" He looked up. The mad grin faded and something on his face changed. He sounded persuasive, nearly pleading. "Can't you feel the power building? Don't you see, this is the way?"

Pain flickered in Komarov's dark eyes ― and disappointment flashed in Dietrich's when the precognitive shook his head.

"It will never work, Adelbert," Komarov said quietly. "That's why the Elders won't try it, it cannot be done. It didn't work with me, it won't work with them. If they are strong enough for this, they are strong enough to fight you, and if they are not..." He shook his head. "If they cannot resist you, they will break just like..." his voice cracked, hoarsely he forced the words out, "just like I did."

"What happened between us was an accident, you know that!" Dietrich snarled. "I was impatient, I didn't understand how it's meant to be done, and most importantly..." his voice welled with contempt, "I didn't realise you were too weak!"

Komarov's dark eyes turned a shade darker. The lines on his sunken face grew deeper.

"But I've learned from my mistakes, Dmitri, will you still not believe it?" Dietrich cocked a challenging eyebrow. "If you are so sure it is impossible, why haven't you given me a vision of my failure?" He shook his head. "You've seen that it can be done!"

Komarov's lips were tense, his voice as wired as his body. "Not like this!" he cried. "Stop this madness, Adelbert! Bring them back. They will cooperate with you."

"Yes, but reluctantly," returned the telepath. "No. I need to be sure."

"You could have been sure!" Komarov argued, anger rising in his voice. "Years ago! Had you taken my suggestion and won their trust..."

"You mean deceived them? Lured them with lies?" Dietrich's glowing eyes gleamed from under his scowling brow, from behind black coils of hair that had fallen out of arrangement. "I tried that with you, Dmitri, didn't I? You know how that ended."

Komarov's eyes welled with pain. "Nothing ever needed to be a lie."

The shadows squirmed on Dietrich's face. Their eyes were locked. Slowly, the telepath's expression contorted to match his partner's anguish. Their psychic bond rang loud, pulling Dietrich like a magnet. He turned slightly, his entire body giving in to the movement away from his victims, towards his partner. His eyes ― tormented, torn ― searched Komarov's face.

But he didn't let go, darkness kept its grip, he held well to Schuldig's shoulder.

"Oh, Dmitri, still the fool," he whispered. "Love isn't built into people like me."

Komarov held his partner's gaze. Dietrich's haunted eyes lingered on his tense face. His hand over Crawford's body was shaking, matching the way Komarov's fists trembled at his sides.

"I didn't want it to come to this. You know that." Dietrich's tone made it less than a statement, more like a demand, _You have to know that_. "But I'm running out of time. You know it's any day now they'll find their vessel."

"Why are you explaining yourself to me, when my opinion clearly doesn't matter to you?" Komarov's voice was sharp.

A wounded expression flashed on Dietrich's face. "You ask me to seek their friendship!" he hissed. "But friendships are founded in affection, and even the most tender human emotions are fleeting and bound to fade. You cannot trust a man's heart. It changes!" Dietrich narrowed his eyes. "I thought I'd have proven that to you by now."

Komarov closed his eyes slowly. His shoulders slumped.

Dietrich turned to look at Schuldig. The haunted semblance, the pain and the hurt all fell away at the sight of the redhead. He barked out a dark laugh. "No. This is the only way," he declared.

Without a word, Komarov shook his head.

"Don't worry, Dmitri. You'll have your reward," Dietrich assured his partner, never taking his eyes off Schuldig. "I will break our bond and cut you loose, like I promised."

Komarov's lips were pulled tight over his grit teeth. He made no reply.

Dietrich's thumb caressed Schuldig's shoulder. "It's not long now. He is mine. And through him... you'll see." Chuckling softly, he lifted the knife and licked off the blood, his eyes moving from Schuldig over to Crawford. An exulted expression spread over his face. "Soon, my love," he promised with a husky whisper. "You'll see. Soon."

Komarov opened his eyes. They glistened with liquid.

"Oh, don't pretend to be so sad, Dmitri. You want your freedom," Dietrich leered. "Isn't that why you've helped me all these years? Why you sold your boy to me? Hush, hush, he'll be fine. Look, it's almost over. He has opened himself up... to welcome in a ghost." With a quiet chuckle, he tracked Crawford's chest muscles with the blade, taking care not to cut the skin. His lips pulled to a grin. "He'll have the devil instead!"

Komarov's anxious eyes followed the movements of the knife.

Dietrich concentrated on studying the clean slate that was a clairvoyant's trademark, like a blinding white surface, or a light so bright it hurt your eyes. Stepping into Crawford's mindscape could be like falling into the sky ― but right now, it would be like walking into a blizzard, a flurry of crystal shards. Crawford's focus was cracked, his soul was stirred, he was coming undone. The cup was overflowing.

"Oh, Oracle, you are bleeding," Dietrich murmured. The blade finally found the centre of the cross in the middle of Crawford's upper body. The telepath hovered at the edge of the pool of precognitive presence.

"Adelbert... don't," pleaded Komarov.

Only the crackling electricity and the bleeping devices answered. Dietrich slipped away like a shadow melting into darkness.

Tears drifted down Komarov's unmoving face.


	16. What Have You Done

**- MINDS -**

**Chapter Eleven  
:: what have you done ::**

It was dark. He could feel the cold surface under him and the heavy burning thing on his chest, but he could see nothing. He was lost in a bottomless shadow where heat was rising, rising, climbing up his spine, shooting through his bones. He was unable to move even to speak. The heat consumed him, furious, feverish, famished for more, more, more, and he heard a voice he almost recognised repeating words that barely had meaning.

"Mein. Mehr. Mehr!" Hissing, hard German. So familiar, yet foreign.

His memories had turned into hazy echoes that could be felt and heard but not seen. His own hands went over a lithe young body meticulously. Over and over again. He heard his own smiling voice.

"My demon..." He was calling for a red-haired boy that hadn't existed in years ― that boy from Rosenkreuz was gone, transformed into a man. Only the demon remained. It had grown more vicious. It possessed him, its hot breath running through his veins like liquid fire.

"Let me... let me..." Heated, hungry whispers in his ears. "Let me..."

The demon fire devoured him. He was sandwiched between the fire above and the ice cold surface below, and both burned him. He was burning.

Brad Crawford was burning in hell, like he had burned before.

The memories faded. The echoes of voices from the past died away. All physical sensations disappeared. The demon fire expanded inside him and penetrated him, deeper and deeper. Carried by a storm wind, a shadow on black wings swept over him. He slipped into a place which was neither in the past nor in the future, a place where time converged with space to conceive an eternal, endless emptiness. It was that place where time was born, where he could touch the fabric of existence and tap into the source of both hope and despair. It was where he found the future, that spaceless place where he could, sometimes, control his visions ― or where he might disappear for ever.

In that spaceless space and timeless time, nothing should exist yet something did.

Something. Something ravenous and dark existed. He could hear a distant rumbling thunder. A shadow rested on his shoulders, heavy and cold. A familiar shadow. It clung onto him, choking him. He was floating in the great beyond, shackled and chained to the shadow of a beast, a monster, a devil, listening to a vile storm building.

And the next thing he knew, he was staring at his own face and his own body. His body was lying on the operating table with a cross-shaped wound cut on his chest ― but he was hovering somewhere above the table, holding the tip of a bloodied knife at the centre of the wound.

"Oh, Oracle, relax," instructed a familiar voice. "I had to establish a link first."

But this was more than a link, more than a mind-to-mind telepathic coupling and certainly more than Crawford had signed up for. A part of him was still connected to the moment outside of time, but another part was with Dietrich ― with, or indeed, inside, looking at his own pale, expressionless face through the telepath's eyes.

"What have you done?" His lips did not move. Where was his voice? Whose mouth was he using? He heard his own shocked question, but he wasn't sure if he was really speaking, if the voice he heard was real.

He was sure that the sinister laughter erupting deep from his throat was real, however.

"Hush, ssh, Oracle. Hush. We are only just getting started." The devil turned his eyes slowly to look at a splash of red hair on the other operating table. "Can you hear them?"

At first, he didn't understand, but as he fell into a confused silence, he realised that the distant rumble of thunder wasn't thunder at all. He could make out voices, words, whispers, he heard slithering hissing snakes under his skull. A chaotic chorus invaded his consciousness.

People. Dozens of people. Maybe hundreds, he couldn't tell. There were too many.

He would have asked again, _What have you done?_ if it wasn't that he understood all too well. This was the very reason why he had feared to link too deeply with Schuldig. It wasn't that he was afraid of the noise, he could drown it out, he could make it disappear into the vast nothing inside him, that was how he had helped Schuldig many times. But this, this was more than noise. He was lost in the telepathic plane, pulled right into someone else's head and he was losing track of which head it was. He couldn't move, he had no control over his body.

Crawford had never been sure if it was possible for a non-telepath to be transferred into someone else's mind so completely that he lost connection to his own body, but here, now, it was happening. He was immediately thinking about other things he hadn't really known for sure that were possible either, other things his mentor had discussed with him, about breaking psychic barriers, building channels and becoming powerful beyond imagination ― about men becoming gods.

A sinister laugh erupted from Dietrich's lips. "Ah yes, he told you a little too much." He glanced from over his shoulder at the grim-faced man behind him.

Komarov did not look away from Crawford's unmoving body.

Dietrich's voice was soft, gentle and even affectionate. "Oh, Dimochka, radost' moy..." He barked out a short laugh and switched from Russian to rough, heavily accented English, "You never cease to disappoint me!"

Komarov's forehead crumpled to a frown. To his shock, Crawford didn't really need to see his mentor's expression to know that the feeling of disappointment was mutual. Komarov's sorrow might as well have been Crawford's own. He recognised Komarov's mental imprint the way he imagined an infant might sense his parent, instinctively. The feeling was profound, crawling under his skin, reverberating in the marrow of his bones.

He might have felt comforted, but instead, he was horrified, because the intimate connection was allowing him to understand things he would rather have never known. He felt Komarov's presence not as a thing or a shape or any other type of a living creature but rather the opposite of all those things. The psychic link that tied Dietrich and Komarov together reached through a dark chasm like a thin string pulling, pulling, pulling at the shadows, suckling on whatever flickering life was left in the void. The two men were intertwined, and everything was bleeding directly into Crawford's head.

Crawford felt tears streaming down his cheeks, but he couldn't tell who was crying them. They matched perfectly with the glistening liquid falling from Komarov's eyes, splintering onto the chest of his uniform. Suddenly, Crawford believed that he understood fully just exactly what was going on between his mentor and the head supervisor of Rosenkreuz. The truth seemed more terrible than anything he could have imagined.

"It's not really him." His voice trembled. "Is it? He behaves like the real thing, but it's just an image... an imitation of who he was. You told me you're holding him together, but you're just sustaining his body. Was it ever really him?"

Komarov didn't react in any way to the sound of Crawford's voice. Then again, maybe it wasn't his voice ― Crawford still didn't know whose mouth he was using, or if he was using any mouth at all. Dietrich shook his head. But he said nothing to defend himself, nothing to deny Crawford's suggestion. Crawford kept wanting to hear an argument. Damn it, he wanted Dietrich to tell him he was wrong!

Dietrich hissed like a wild animal. He kept refusing to offer an explanation.

Or perhaps his silence was a confession.

"How do you live with this?" Crawford choked on every word.

Dietrich's eyes were lost on his partner's unmoving face. "I don't," he whispered.

It might have meant that he regretted, but as Crawford listened, he knew it wasn't true. It was hard to think with his head so full of other people, but it was because of the other people that he understood what Dietrich meant. He was feeling too much, he was horrified and sad at the same time, and he felt also a million other things, he felt pain and sorrow and anger and fear and all the feelings that should make him sick, but in the crossfire of it all, he was numb. All emotion seemed too vast to be real, too far away to be felt.

That was how Dietrich "didn't live with it". The hollow void that was Dmitri Komarov and the commotion that was everyone else were locked in a steel cage. All feelings glanced off the cold surfaces endlessly like reflections in a house of mirrors. Maybe for the first time, Crawford appreciated every single metaphor the young, confused Schuldig had once used to describe Dietrich ― mute, dead, cold. All sound disappeared into the abyss that was Adelbert Dietrich's soul.

Composer simply had nothing inside that might generate an echo.

"Very nice, Oracle, but I don't need your sympathy," Dietrich rasped. "We're wasting time."

Crawford might have told him that sympathy was far from what he was feeling, but he couldn't get a word out, his head was too full of all sorts of other kind of noise, and he was nauseated, staring at Komarov's face, yet he couldn't look away.

Dietrich soon fixed that for him. He was obviously in control of whatever passed for a physical existence for Crawford. As soon as he tore his eyes off his partner, Crawford too was looking at something else. Dietrich's eyes shot down at the red-haired young girl hovering in the air on top of the operating table, her glowing eyes staring up into the ceiling. Crawford had never seen her before.

"Focus, Oracle. If you help me, you'll have everything I promised you. If you fight me... you will be destroyed. Either way, it's too late to stop me."

Crawford didn't need to ask questions, Dietrich did not need to explain anything for Crawford to understand even the most minute details of his thoughts. If the master telepath really intended to bring Schuldig back, it was not in his immediate plans. Right now, he was doing something else. Crawford could feel dozens and dozens of other people Dietrich was linked to, more minds than he could count, and too many to tell apart. Every single one of those minds was in pain, terrified and screaming. He could not sense Schuldig, but he could sense the red-haired girl, she was different from all the others. Her mind was vacant yet vibrant, animated but without pattern or purpose. She felt nothing, nothing that Crawford could sense.

But what Crawford _could_ sense was a presence like a pulsating ball of energy, breathing in the rhythm of Dietrich's rising and falling chest. He could feel her so, so clearly, like she was part of him. They were all part of him. All part of the converging circle of energy that was compressed into a single dot, like the point of a needle ― inside Dietrich. Crawford understood what it meant. This was something that Komarov had suggested but never explained, never told Crawford how it was done. He still didn't understand how Dietrich was doing this. Crawford had been led to believe that Dietrich needed Schuldig for this! How could he do this when Schuldig was, well, less than alive?

...maybe, then, Schuldig _was_ alive? Crawford's head was spinning and his stomach was sinking and somersaulting at the same time. He had talked with Schuldig. Was it the real Schuldig or not?! His chest ached for the need to know!

With a hiss, Dietrich slammed his free hand against his chest and clutched the front of his uniform. Sweat drops dripped down his neck, Crawford felt them running down his spine.

"You can have him back, Oracle." Dietrich glowered at Schuldig's unmoving face. "Once we are done, I'll have no more use for him."

It had the taste of truth. Crawford was hearing Dietrich's thoughts so clearly, so loud, so terribly loud, they struck him like hits in the guts. He couldn't doubt a single word, it was simply not possible, and oh, how loud everything was! How dizzy he felt!

And all he could think was, _Schuldig._ He trembled with his need to know _... where are you?_

"Why, you brought him with you, Oracle," murmured Dietrich, his face relaxing towards a smile. He reached out and touched Schuldig's cheek with his fingertips. "You've carried him since the forest..."

Crawford held his breath. This, too, tasted true.

"...just as I've carried Dmitri."

Crawford swallowed. He wanted to keep swallowing, swallowing for ever, to get rid of the bad taste in his mouth. If he was right about Komarov, he didn't want to think that he carried Schuldig the same way, because that meant that Schuldig was irretrievably gone.

"Ssh, I told you, it will all be just like it was." Dietrich's lips pulled to a wider smile as his eyes lingered on Schuldig's pale face, the smile widened and widened until it was a grimace. "Now, Oracle..." he hissed. "Give me my destiny!"

Crawford did not have the time to really consider what was about to happen, or how he should react. The quiet place inside him expanded. It was and yet wasn't similar to the dead nothing where Dietrich's consciousness always lurked as though in a dark cave, hidden and safe from whatever emotions that plagued mere mortals. He kept becoming smaller and smaller until he began to expand simply because he could become no smaller and so the movement turned in on itself and was reversed, switched and transformed to its opposite. He was becoming larger than any one thing could or should ever be, and the chorus surrounded him like endless rows of spectators, spreading out everywhere around him, yet he was larger than this, larger than anything, and at the same time smaller, smaller, ever smaller.

Contradictions, impossibilities, bending the rules of reality, ah, the universe itself was bending, bending out of proportion and into a shapeless form without beginning or an end. Crawford opened his eyes wide and then wider, but no width could ever catch the breadth of this breath or make sense of this senseless insanity.

Madness. This was madness, and he wanted to tell Dietrich so, but he had no control over his mouth, or indeed any mouth. He tried to breathe, scream, speak, but could not.

...no. He _would_ not. In case Schuldig was somewhere in here. He needed to find Schuldig, though he was forgetting why. It was hard to remember anything but that one thing, one word, one name.

_Schuldig._

_Schuldig._

_Schuldig._

Crawford was hearing other words too, words he didn't understand, like a chant, but the whispers faded into the noise in his head. He was frozen into a moment outside of time, where all he was, had been or would ever be was compressed to that single word, that name that had become a purpose.

_Schuldig._

Something answered. Something warm, like an outstretched hand, grasping his own and holding tight.

_Schuldig._

His universe spiralled out of control. He was no longer seeing crackling lights and white walls. He wasn't seeing the operating tables or Schuldig's immobile body. Yet he _was_. He saw it all, he saw right through it all, though these weren't really images, they weren't lights or shadows. They were shapes without shape, and he thought he could see something moving, yet he couldn't. He could see bodies made up of other bodies, bodies so tiny that it became impossible to comprehend their existence ― he was seeing directly through the physical reality into the smallest particles that made up matter itself.

He was seeing the world like a person with a kinetic talent might see it. A psychokinetic could make all those particles dance.

Dietrich had shared thoughts with many psychokinetics, he had melted into the cosmic place within all places and become one with each and every part of that which surrounded him, but this time it was different. He was connected to everything inside matter, and he was connected to everything outside it. With one hand, he touched the physical reality in ways only a psychokinetic could, and with the other, he was reaching through infinity in ways only a clairvoyant might. He stood in the middle, bridging both worlds.

But bridging them wasn't enough. Never enough.

In the hazy reality somewhere, Dietrich pivoted on his heels. His eyes fixed on the red-haired girl, Dietrich raised the blade. He was aware of his partner's held breath and the quiet objection, but all choices and decisions had been made. Dietrich plunged the blade into the girl's chest.

For a second, he forgot what breathing meant.

She opened her mouth wide in surprise, but there was no scream. There was pain, and there was a ball of energy bursting in his chest. His connection to the girl was shaking, breaking, but he didn't let it snap, he sucked it in. He sucked her in somewhere at the pit of his stomach, ah, and deeper. One moment she was there, and the next moment she was somewhere else. He could still feel her but not as a presence but as thunder inside him.

A shudder went through Dietrich's body, then a shock of electricity followed ― a sizzling sparkle like miniature lightning flickered in the hand that held the knife, as though the blood in his veins had turned into liquid light and his skin had become transparent. The light show disappeared into his sleeve, and a deep growl was released from Dietrich's chest. The light travelled through his body, until it finally made it all the way out from under his collar, causing the blood vessels on his face to glow. Bolts of lightning shot through his long hair, turning the black strands into white-hot living electricity.

That same electricity snaked through every single piece of electronic equipment and zinged off every single metal surface in the room. Dietrich stood in the middle of the storm, laughing, watching the spectacle. The sensors were bleeping and producing alternating readings, some off the charts, others blank as though every single body hooked up to them had flatlined.

Next to one of the crazed monitors stood the quiet, dark figure of Dmitri Komarov, his sunken face bathed in the flashing lights, his fists squeezed against his sides, his eyes still fixed on Crawford's body. His wild grey hair floated as though touched by an unnatural wind. He stood.

Watching.

Waiting.

Dietrich's entire body was glowing with an unnatural light. He took a sharp breath and stopped laughing. He yanked the knife out of the girl's chest. She fell onto the table with a thud, lifeless and limp. Dietrich held his hand high up in the air. His body didn't stop glowing. He flicked his wrist, and his hand was immediately enveloped with a flickering blue fire. He started to laugh again, low from the throat.

"It's working," he hissed. "Look, Mitya. It's working. It's working."

More tears fell down Komarov's cheeks.

"Look, Mitya, look," Dietrich urged him, brandishing the knife. His face was twisted in a terrible grin as he stared at his own glowing hand. "Look how a man can cheat nature!" His laughter escalated.

Komarov's eyes moved slowly from Crawford's immobile face to Dietrich's hand, but instead of blazing blue fire, he saw something else. The hand was soaked in blood, and next, it was sinking into a wound cut on a man's body, groping for the intestines. The disgusting vision was soon followed by others, each one more revolting than the previous. In each one, Dietrich was taking pleasure from every single kill while devouring the bodies of his victims, making sure they stayed alive, their screams accompanying his gruesome feast until the mangled bodies finally stopped twitching.

"You know there is a price." Komarov's voice was toneless. "Your body cannot sustain this power. It'll consume you. And the more you feed it..."

"Hush, don't fret, my love. I'll only kill those without powers, without hope, without future. What does a few humans matter to us? We are gods!"

Komarov closed his eyes. Dietrich whirled on his heels. His fingers crawled to squeeze the knife. His hand trembled and his knuckles turned white. His white, pupilless eyes blazed at Komarov from under dark eyebrows as he once again extended one hand towards his partner.

"Stand with me, Dmitri." Dietrich's voice was filled with dark purpose. It was a command and not a suggestion. Komarov didn't open his eyes, but his body was pulled, forced on the move. He drifted across the floor like a sleepwalker, only to stop right in front of Dietrich. "Don't you see?" murmured Dietrich. His hand was shaking as it landed on Komarov's cheek. "Don't you see? Stand with me!"

Komarov stood motionless, his face grim, his eyes squeezed shut.

Dietrich's fingers glided over Komarov's cheek, causing ripples through the older man's body, sending sparkles of miniature lightning over his skin. "Can't you see?" he demanded again.

"I can see," came the answer.

But the voice didn't belong to Komarov.

Komarov's eyes flashed open. Dietrich's head whipped around. The black-haired body on the operating table behind Dietrich sat up. Electrodes popped off his scalp. One impatient hand swept away the wires, then peeled off the cap. He flung his legs down off the table and almost lost his balance as he stepped onto the floor. Blood ran down his upper body. The golden eyes were motionless, fixed on Dietrich's face yet seemed to be looking at a point somewhere past him, like the eyes of a dreaming man trying to find reality.

"I can see," resounded the deep voice, but the intonation was foreign, fumbling. Heavily accented.

This was not Brad Crawford.

Dietrich's glowing eyes widened. "My pet..." His voice was thick, hoarse.

From the distance, echoed a voice that had never stopped calling for a particular name.

_"Schuldig."_

The black-haired young man blinked slowly. He touched his chest and swept his long fingers over the wound. Flinching at the pain, he dropped his gaze on his blood-stained fingertips. His face remained blank and flaccid.

_"Schuldig,"_ called a voice.

"Schuldig..." he whispered tentatively, searching for the words. "...I can see." He blinked again. And again.

Dietrich grabbed the young man's shoulder. Sparks flew as though he had just smashed two flintstones together.

A shudder passed through Crawford's body. Then, suddenly, his blank expression was broken by a strange smile, and he growled, "Oh... look..." His eyes shot up at Dietrich's face. "Crawford!" He slammed his palm against Dietrich's cheek.

Dietrich jerked, then froze. Suddenly, everything disappeared ― everything except for a pair of cold blue eyes and a profound understanding that there was only one name that mattered right now.

Crawford.

_"Brad Crawford!"_

_"Hey, Crawford..."_

_"Crawford__―__Crawfor__d―Crawford―"_

In one extended blink of an eye, he was everywhere all at once, he remembered who he had been and who he would be, and somewhere in between, he remembered his name. He remembered that his name had a meaning, one that barely held personal significance but one that must define him, give him a past and give him a future, give him a place to belong. He remembered a particular voice speaking that name...

_»Crawford.»_ The mental voice sparkled like a glass of fresh poured champagne.

"Crawford." The physical voice was all wrong, but Crawford would have recognised it from among a thousand voices. It was coming out of the wrong mouth, but it was reproducing the intonation, and all Crawford could hear was a harsh German accent, the purr through every hard sound. All he saw was an all too familiar smile, all he felt was an all too familiar presence, and he knew. He knew without a shred of doubt.

Schuldig. This was Schuldig. Schuldig was behind those golden eyes, in there somewhere, in control of Crawford's body.

"Ssh, my pet," murmured Dietrich. "Don't worry. It's just some crossed wires. We'll fix it once this is done." He clasped Crawford's ― Schuldig's ― hand on his cheek. "Just listen to me. Do as I tell you, it will be all right."

The golden eyes were staring intently at Dietrich's face, and Crawford sensed that Schuldig was about to comply. Dietrich made him lower his hand. Crawford struggled to separate his own sensations from those of the other two psychics. The hand with which Dietrich held onto the body that had used to be Crawford's property and the hand that held him back belonged to Crawford and Schuldig and Dietrich simultaneously. Something inside Crawford kept telling him that everything was all right. He didn't need to do anything but let the events unfold. Nothing mattered but seeing the ghost of the blue eyes in there somewhere, behind the golden spheres. Maybe nothing else needed to matter ever again...

...whomp! A heavy, large hand on his shoulder, and a bottomless void that sucked in all noise, all thought, everything except for a single voice.

"It's time." Calm, soothing, certain.

He spun on his heels, and he forgot who he was. He was looking at the serene, sunken features of a man he couldn't name, if only because of the confusion of names that went through his mind at the sight of those dark, dark eyes.

_Counsellor. Mein Meister. Herr Komarov._ Official, but always with a touch of laughter lurking somewhere underneath, trying to puncture that serious surface.

_Dmitri._ The first stage, the first push, the first attempt at getting closer, closer, closer, until...

_...Mitya..._ ...at last, he was closer, he was close ― so close.

Too close.

Click, their buttons said, they were chest to chest, and the dark eyes engaged him, held him, held him as firm as the hand that had found his wrist. Knobbly fingers clasped the fingers that held the knife.

The knife. The knife reminded him of pain.

"You think you can do it again?" he hissed, and it was Dietrich who spoke, his voice trembling with anger. "Put a blade into me? You think I'd let you do it again? You think you can stop me?"

Slowly, Komarov shook his head. His dark eyes drifted from Dietrich to Crawford's blank face. He met the intent golden eyes that kept staring, staring, staring.

"Niet, moy bies," murmured Komarov. A faint smile rippled on his lips as he turned to Dietrich again. "I cannot stop you. I never could."

And right then, right there, as he met his mentor's gaze through Dietrich's eyes, Crawford knew. Just like he had known that he was looking at the real Schuldig a minute ago, he _knew_. Komarov could not stop Dietrich.

But Crawford could.

Dietrich frowned. Crawford sensed his confusion. His attention started to move away from Komarov, turning towards its new enemy with the accuracy of a well-trained soldier, like a snake preparing to strike. Crawford had but a second to make up his mind but it felt like an extended millennia compressed into a single heartbeat. He saw his mentor's dark, expectant eyes. He remembered the words...

_Make me proud, Brad._

He remembered the relieved sigh he had foreseen. Oracle was never wrong.

He felt the hilt of the knife in his hand and the warm body against his own, and he remembered the hundred times he had done a dirty deed upon command, never before had his hand hesitated ― and the next second, the blink-of-an-eye window of opportunity was over, and Dietrich's grip of the knife tightened. Crawford knew that he had lost, his indecision had cost him, Dietrich had caught the intention and they were all finished, no, no, though he couldn't remember why, Crawford needed to do what his mentor had asked of him, he needed to, needed to, needed to..!

Komarov's body jerked. He blinked, just once. He seized Dietrich's uniform with his free hand.

Dietrich looked down in shock ― at his own hand, soaked in blood, clutching the knife that had just penetrated Komarov's body. The whole blade was inside, deep inside with a vengeance.

Crawford stared at his own hand as well, but he was seeing it from Dietrich's perspective, through Dietrich's eyes. His body hovered right beside Dietrich's shoulder, his face blank and expressionless, his eyes unfocused. His hand held Dietrich's wrist in a firm grip. Crawford didn't think he had been the one to move neither the hand nor the knife.

Dietrich's mouth hung wide open. Komarov forced him to keep squeezing the hilt, holding it steady. The dark eyes searched Dietrich's horrified face.

A smile spread on Komarov's lips.

Dietrich dragged his eyes up. The eerie glowing light in his eyes dimmed, his pupils came vaguely visible in the depths of the glistening crystalline spheres. They kept darting all over Komarov's face, everywhere all at once, and Crawford knew that he was looking for something, something he didn't fully understand, something that would give him an answer to a question he had never asked. He felt nauseated and nervous and calm and contented at the same time.

Yet above all, he felt numb. He was numb with horror as he watched his mentor letting go of the blade and falling, falling forever. The thud of Komarov's body hitting the floor was like the thump of his heart hitting the bottom of his guts, ripping out his lungs as it went.

"Mitya." He didn't recognise the voice nor the name. The knife slipped from his fingers and clattered on the floor. He still felt the warmth of the large heavy hand on his skin, and then that receding warmth sucked him in, pulled him down on his knees next to the body.

Crawford remained standing. He didn't fully understand that he was standing on his own two feet. He couldn't, wouldn't understand anything other than the sight of the two men at his feet, one on his knees, the other sprawled on his back.

"Mitya," Dietrich called hoarsely, groping his partner's uniform. His voice was drowned out by the deafening noise of screaming people in his head, the crackling lights and the bleeping medical instruments. His skin was still glowing, his hair was still made from white-hot electricity, but the light in his eyes was gone completely by the time he found the wound and pressed his palm uselessly on top of it.

Uselessly, because the injury might as well have been his own, it was his own, he felt it like it was cut into his own body, and he knew that it was too deep, and he was not a biokinetic, and there was no time to call for one. By the time anyone would get here, it would be too late.

Too late.

No. No. No!

"You fool. You... you..." Dietrich's trembling fingers crawled all over Komarov's uniform. "What... what have you done, what did you... what..."

The dark eyes welled with tears, but the corners of Komarov's eyes wrinkled up. Komarov was smiling, laughing without sound. He heaved an exuberant sigh.

Relief.

Crawford squeezed his hands to fists at his sides and watched his vision unfolding in silent, breathless despair.

Dietrich started to shake his head. "No. No, no, I'll fix this!" He kept shaking his head. "I'll repair your body. The link will keep you alive. Like it kept the boy."

The dark eyes went closed. Komarov's body was struggling for every breath, there was blood everywhere. Dietrich's bloodied hands spread it everywhere, all over the body that kept letting go.

"You forget, Adelbert," Komarov coughed, "the boy wanted to live."

Dietrich kept opening his mouth but he could make no use of it. His body shook with the series of gasps that matched Komarov's laboured breaths.

Komarov's expression changed. It was something less than a smile, something worse than a sneer.

"Oh..." he murmured. "I've disappointed you again." With that, he let his breath out.

He didn't draw it back in.

Dietrich choked. His fingers clenched. He didn't breathe. He didn't move.

Neither did anything else in the room. The lights stopped flickering, the monitors stopped spewing senseless readings, the noise disappeared. There was just Komarov's unmoving body on the floor and a frozen Dietrich on his knees next to it, there was the limp injured red-haired girl on one operating table and the equally limp red-haired young man on another, and there was Crawford.

Crawford stood very still in the middle of the room, his upper body bare. He was back in his body. The noise from his head was gone. It was quiet, the whole room was quiet. Even the machines were silent.

The glow on Dietrich's skin and the sizzling lights in his hair blinked out. His dark hair fell on both sides of his head like veils to hide his face. The grey eyes remained fixed on Komarov's face. Dietrich's fists trembled on his partner's chest. His shoulders started to shake. His mouth hung wide open like he was screaming, but nothing came out.

All sound was gone.


	17. Shattered

**- MINDS -**

**Chapter Twelve  
:: shattered ::**

_The black-haired young man in his twenties ran his hands slowly up over the wide chest of the man standing in front of him. The shaking of his fingers was barely detectable. His lips were pursed, his grey eyes scanned the suit __―__ the jacket, the shirt, the trousers, everything had to be just so. Just as it was every day._

_It was lucky that he knew the lines and folds of the suit so well._

_He went over every part of the man's outfit, made sure that the shoes were laced the way the man always laced them and the tie was done the way he always did it. He didn't look up past the collar until he had no other place to look. Slowly, he raised his eyes to the severe face waiting for him atop the broad shoulders._

_The dark eyes met him from under thick eyebrows. The brown hair was combed back __―__ the young man had done that first, made him sit down on the edge of the bed and worked from behind him. It looked convincing. No loose strands anywhere._

_"You look fine," Adelbert decided._

_Only a soulless stare met his comment. Dmitri Komarov's solemn face was motionless._

_Adelbert dropped his gaze. He fixed the position of a button that didn't need fixing. "It's probably best I stay close by today, probably tomorrow too, and..." His voice faded, then he cleared his throat. "I'm not sure when you'll be ready to go about on your own."_

_Dmitri's hand snaked out and grabbed his wrist. Adelbert jumped and looked up with widening eyes. The blank expression was gone, the dark brow furrowed in anger._

_"When, Adelbert? When?" hissed the older man. "Don't you mean, if I'll ever be ready?"_

_Adelbert's fingers crawled into a fist, but he didn't try to free his hand. He jutted up his chin. "Maybe you won't, maybe you will. I don't see why it wouldn't be possible eventually. But you're still weak for now. You might..."_

_"Might? Maybe? You don't know anything for sure!" The dark eyes narrowed to thin slits. "You destroyed me for an if and a might and a maybe!"_

_A deep breath swelled in Adelbert's chest but it was never released. After a long breathless moment, a thin voice made it out. _

_"I didn't mean to break you."_

_Dmitri did not respond. He crushed the telepath's wrist in a terrible grip, then tossed it away with a disgusted gesture, like he was throwing away trash._

_A wounded expression flashed on Adelbert's face. "Mitya..."_

_Slap! The back of Dmitri's hand smacked the telepath across the face. His eyes were burning with a dark fire. _

_"Never," he said grimly. "Never call me that again. You have lost the right."_

_Adelbert staggered back. He choked, retreated like a burned animal, blinking furiously ― but soon returned with a vengeance. He slammed his hands on Dmitri's chest, clawed at the suit, growled deep from his throat. _

_"No! You! It's your fault! You weren't strong enough!"_

_The dark eyes gleamed with anger. Dmitri stood like an old tree with his roots dug deep into the ground. He said nothing._

_"You were the one who told me how it's done!" hissed Adelbert. "We talked about this! You just... you... you didn't tell me everything!" His eyes flashed. "As usual!"_

_"I talked to you about a theory! It's never been done!" Dmitri's scowl deepened. "For a good reason, don't you think?"_

_Adelbert studied his face in silence for a long minute. _

_"You were never going to help me." He blinked. Once. Twice. Then rapidly for a good minute. "You led me on." _

_"And what about you?" Dmitri snapped. "What lies have you let me believe? Why did you insert yourself into my bed if not to take advantage of my affections?"_

_Adelbert stopped blinking and started shaking his head instead. _

_"Affections?" He snorted haughtily. "I've no use for your affections! I only offered you what you needed! It's not my fault if you're weak enough to let your emotions mislead you on my intentions." His eyes began to gleam a dangerous light. "But you! You talked to me about the theory to make me want to follow you! Just to give me a reason to serve you!"_

_Dmitri paused. _

_Adelbert's tongue slipped out to moisten his lips, like a snake tasting the air. His intent eyes drilled holes in Dmitri's head. "Ah-ah," he whispered and tapped his forehead with two fingers, "I can hear you, Dmitri..."_

_Dmitri frowned. "You've never been my servant, Adelbert."_

_Adelbert's scowl matched Dmitri's. "No," he growled. "And I never will be."_

_The telepath waved his hand dramatically. All expression suddenly disappeared from Dmitri's face. His hands fell. _

_Adelbert's eyes glistened with liquid that never spilled on his cheeks. He stared at Dmitri's unmoving face. The older man looked as calm and composed as always._

_"You'll be a good boy for me, Dmitri," Adelbert whispered, "and do exactly as I tell you. I'll lead this team from now on."_

_Dmitri did not speak a word of protest. Unless Adelbert permitted it, he would not speak a word of protest ever again. Somewhere behind the dark eyes and the serious face, his mind was held together by a thin thread spun by the man who had shattered him._

_And he saw that it was to be so for all time ― or until death would part them._

* * *

Time stopped to wait for a cancelled future.

Apart from his shaking shoulders, Dietrich didn't move a muscle. Liquid spilled down his cheeks and fell to mix with blood on his partner's unmoving body. He didn't blink. He was locked somewhere in between one breath and another, reaching through a void, groping after a thin thread that hung loose in his hands. He was silent, yet he was screaming into a chasm that sucked in his voice.

Behind him, Crawford stood still. Not a single tear ran down his cheeks, not a line on his face testified to what was going on inside him ― because nothing was. He felt nothing. Nothing. His body was weak, nauseated and dizzy, but his soul had moved somewhere else, into a place past emotion.

He didn't look at his mentor's body, he couldn't stomach it. His eyes were fixed onto the back of the kneeling man at his feet. Nothing was processing for him except for the sight of this man. He hated this man. Today, he hated this man more than he had ever done, for more reasons than he could count. This man kept taking.

Taking, taking, taking until there was nothing left to take.

Crawford's upper lip curled, he melted into motion. With two quick strides, he stepped over to where he had left his clothes. He seized the gun from on top of the pile ― Schuldig's gun ― and then headed back towards the kneeling man. As he walked, he cocked the hammer, and with one smooth motion, shoved the muzzle of the gun into the black hair.

"Does it hurt?" Crawford whispered, his eyes burning. "Tell me, _mein Herr_... which hurts more..." he spat out the words which Dietrich had thrown in his face earlier, "...to look at him like this, or to know that it was your fault?"

A shudder passed through Dietrich's body. Several tears splashed on his shaking fists, and more kept coming. He didn't answer, he still wouldn't breathe. The muzzle of the gun dug deeper, forcing him to tilt his head forward, yet he did not react.

Crawford's finger slid on the trigger, he held the grip of the gun tighter and tighter until his hand trembled. He would have gladly squeezed that metal until he felt the satisfying kick in the cradle of his palm, ah, his anger could burst out and splinter into this hateful man's head, the bullet could bury itself deep, deep inside that dark brain that had caused all this, all this fucking pain that made him want to scream inwards until he had no breath left in his lungs.

Yet his finger did not clench. He wanted to hear it first.

"Answer me, you piece of shit!" Crawford hissed. "How does it fucking feel?"

Dietrich's body remained unresponsive, he still wasn't breathing, not until a tiny, tiny gasp retrieved a dose of air he badly needed, and like flood gates opening, that single gasp sent him into a fit of sobs. He fell forward and collapsed on top of Komarov's lifeless body in a bundle that kept trying to curl into a tiny ball. His head disappeared into the cradle of his arms, his fists protecting his head.

Crawford's hand fell. He stared at the shaking mess at his feet with dead eyes that kept seeing more than he wanted to see. He was seeing something much smaller than a grown man. He saw a young thing, perhaps twelve years old, maybe even younger. He saw a black-haired boy in a grey Rosenkreuz uniform just like the one Crawford had been made to wear back when he had still been a student. He was seeing into the past. He immediately assumed that it was a mind trick, a mere phantom that the best illusionist in Rosenkreuz created in order to protect himself from Crawford's anger in his moment of weakness, hoping to inspire Crawford's sympathy.

He wanted none of it! He did not want to see this apparition that was nothing but a shield to hide the monster huddling behind it! He kicked it hard in the ribs and was rewarded with the pleasant sound of cracking bone.

Yet there was no scream to accompany the sound, and the illusion didn't fade. Crawford was kicking a child. Infuriating! This was not a ten-year-old boy, this was a grown man, this was a monster, and Crawford would treat it as such!

"Get up!" he commanded, if only to stay his foot from delivering more well deserved punishment. "On your feet and look at me! Look at me, you asshole, and tell me how it feels! Don't you fucking tell me it doesn't hurt!"

But even now, Dietrich didn't react. Crawford kept seeing the child instead of the man. He wiped his mouth with the back of one trembling hand. He didn't understand the vision, but it didn't even matter. He didn't want to understand anything, he didn't want to know a fucking thing other than just how much Dietrich was hurting right now, just how well he understood every bit of Crawford's pain. He wanted to watch the man begging for release from it...

...and then be denied.

Crawford's finger relaxed on the trigger of the gun. That's right. He didn't want to kill Dietrich. He wanted to watch him suffer just like this. Just like he had made so many others suffer. The devil would know pain, and he would know regret.

Crawford would make sure of it.

His mind made up, Crawford turned away from the pathetic bundle that didn't deserve his attention. He took a look around the room. All machines were silent. The lights were still on, but they were no longer flickering. Everything was very still. Crawford's eyes found the operating table where the immobile girl was lying. She was very, very still indeed. On impulse, he walked swiftly over to the girl. He tested her pulse. Not there. Nothing to be done for her. The child was dead.

How had Dietrich planned on explaining all this? Was the girl to be written off as a failed experiment? What had he planned on doing with Crawford and Schuldig?

Crawford believed that he knew the answer to the latter question. For a little while, Crawford had been completely under Dietrich's command. Perhaps Komarov's fate had awaited him.

Perhaps Komarov had done this to save his favourite pupil.

Crawford's eyes fell to the floor. A pool of blood was spreading at his feet. There was a great deal of blood. Crawford blinked in mild surprise when he remembered that he, too, was bleeding. It hurt, or rather, he supposed that it hurt, but he was too numb inside to really feel it. Emotional and physical pain were becoming the same thing until neither really mattered.

There was only one thing in that room that really mattered anymore. Crawford's eyes finally moved towards the operating table where the red-haired young man was resting on his side, tufts of fierce firelight hair peeking out from under the electrode cap. With all the tubes and wires, he looked like some exotic tentacled creature. Crawford couldn't make out whether or not Schuldig's chest was rising and falling, and he was so pale! Too pale, so pale that Crawford might have believed that he was drained of all blood.

His feet took him across the floor before he had really decided to move. Crawford stopped next to the operating table and swept his hand over Schuldig's body to his throat. Schuldig's skin felt warm, hot even, he was burning up, like he had fever. Crawford's thumb swept over Schuldig's cheek while his fingers searched for the pulse. Schuldig didn't react to his touch, but he was breathing in an even rhythm. Crawford was quickly reassured that the telepath's body, at least, was perfectly alive.

What of his mind? Crawford studied Schuldig's face. Where was the presence he had sensed? He had sensed something. It had been Schuldig, in control of Crawford's body only a while ago. He knew it had been Schuldig! He knew it! Where was the telepath now? Was he still here? Back in his body? Or had he disappeared back into the aether somewhere?

"Schuldig." Crawford ran the back of his fingers over Schuldig's forehead. He wanted, needed to hear a response.

But there was nothing. No sound, not even the subdued, struggling breaths of a man trying to hold back his sobbing ― Dietrich had fallen silent again. Crawford's jaws moved.

_»__Schuldig.__»_ He wished, more than believed, that an answer would come.

Silence dragged on. Crawford took a deep breath. Inhale. Exhale. Keep a cool head. Breathe, Oracle...

...no, not Oracle...

_"Breathe, Brad. Breathe." A calm, soothing voice and a large warm hand on his small shoulder._

He could almost still feel Komarov's hand there. So many times the man had soothed him. Crawford squeezed the gun in his hand convulsively. Another blinding flash of anger almost had him wheeling around on his heels, swinging the gun and pulling the trigger to kill the man who was responsible for taking away that calm, warm hand forever. He wasn't sure what superhuman strength kept him from it. His fingers crawled into Schuldig's hair.

Maybe this was what kept him standing still. This body here, here. Right here. He needed to wake this body. He could have probably listed a hundred reasons ― logical reasons ― for why he needed Schuldig, but none of the reasons mattered.

Crawford just simply needed Schuldig.

"Schuldig," he said harshly, not unlike he would have spoken to a team mate during a mission. "Wake up."

But there was no answer. No fucking answer. Crawford searched Schuldig's pale, expressionless face. The redhead was lying like a dead man, blue eyes staring into the distance. Crawford collected a lump of red hair in his fist, his knuckles turned white. His eyes searched Schuldig's face.

"Schuldig. You need to wake up."

No answer.

Crawford wiped his mouth with the back of his shaking hand, the one that still held Schuldig's gun. He was surprised to find that his face was wet. He lowered his hand and stared at it in confusion. The moisture simply wouldn't compute. When he blinked and the tears splintered on the metal surface of the gun, he had trouble understanding that it wasn't rain. How could he be crying, when he was so empty inside? There was nothing there, no rain, no thunder, no ocean swelling up like a hungry tide to bleed out of his eyes, no, no, there was nothing.

Nothing anywhere in the room, either. It was quiet. Dietrich was lying on top of his partner's dead body, frozen, making no sound. Schuldig generated no disturbance, no movement, no sound. And Crawford...

Crawford kept forgetting to breathe. He kept staring at his own hand. It was the same one that had held on to Dietrich's wrist when the knife had tasted Komarov's flesh, but did it really matter which hand it had been physically? It had been Crawford's hand either way. Crawford had held the weapon in his hand, and oh he had felt Komarov's fingers closing around his own and holding him so tight, forcing him to keep the blade inside, until...

Until.

Komarov had slipped away, leaving nothing, nothing but this emptiness, this quiet room where nothing moved. Time was quietly slipping from between Crawford's fingers just like Komarov's life had done ― and just like Schuldig's life had slipped away back in the forest. Crawford raised his eyes slowly back to the telepath's pale face. He searched it for signs that some life really was in there somewhere, behind those glassy eyes and those frozen lips, damn it, he needed those lips to move, to speak, to break this fucking silence!

Breath came out of his lungs with a burst, but he choked on the inhale. "Schuldig." The name came out as a whimper, and he wanted to touch Schuldig's face and find the smile, but he could see that it just wasn't there. In anger, he growled and tugged the telepath's hair, but there was no reaction. None. Nothing. Nothing.

The anger ebbed away and in the oppressing silence that followed, Crawford saw no future. He couldn't tell when or if Schuldig would move. He could only see a stretch of silence just like this. They would not be disturbed in some time. Dietrich was not about to snap out of it. Schuldig obviously wasn't there, and Komarov... Komarov would never be there again.

Crawford was absolutely, completely alone.

Crawford's eyes moved from Schuldig's face to his own fist that still squeezed a lump of red hair. Sunset coils oozed out from between his fingers. More tears fell. Water. Crawford was thinking about water and sunset, and then he was thinking about a creek and the fading sunlight over the mountains.

These were the images of a fool's quest for peace.

Crawford kept staring at the sunset colours but he wasn't seeing loops of hair snaking around his fingers, he was seeing something different, something better and something worse. He had never told Schuldig all the reasons why he had always looked at the mountains. He had used the mountains surrounding Rosenkreuz like a shield to hide the memories of a very different set of mountains in another place, another time. He didn't know what the telepath had assumed or imagined, he didn't know and he didn't care. He had kept the truth locked deep inside, not sparing it a second thought so as to keep it private, because that was the only way to hide anything from a telepath ― never think of it, never let it cross your mind.

But here, right now, in this silence, there was no telepath listening in on him. Here, right now, for just a little while, he was a young boy standing on a rocky ledge on an equally rocky slope overlooking a stream and a breathtaking view of forest climbing high and then higher on the mountainsides all around. There were no human-generated sounds, no roaring engines, no whistles, no screaming and no swearing. There was only this silence that wasn't silence ― nature's own brand of peace that could only be broken by the rustling of an animal in the undergrowth or the chirping of a bird in the trees, and even those sounds were far, far away. Here, he was in his own personal bubble, and he wanted it to be for ever.

He had sat on that ledge for a long time. But even here, he had found no escape from the curse of time. No silence would be loud enough to block out the screaming and the swearing that would follow later. The future would always follow.

Over and over again, they would argue, again and again.

He had thought, for a while, that if he stayed here, maybe he could stop it. If he simply refused to be a part of the future, maybe he could put an end to the merciless progression of time. Maybe, if he stayed here forever, never went back, he might keep it from happening.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Sunset had come, but the voices had only grown louder, angrier, and he had kept hearing more, too much. He had sat frozen on that ledge, his arms around him, his chin supported against his knees, paralysed, unable to move from his destroyed paradise. He had wanted the mountains to be silent for him and give him peace. He had wanted it so much.

But he hadn't found his peace from the mountains. He had learned to create it for himself, learned it from a man whose warm hand had held him steady and whose calm voice had soothed him and told him to try again, and again, and again, until he got it right. Dmitri Komarov had taught him how to be the master of his self-generated paradise.

Crawford had meant to repay him by setting him free.

A choked gasp, then a hoarse chortle, and the next thing he knew, he was laughing with tears in his eyes. He had set his mentor free, all right. He had done it with a knife, he had brought wrong kind of peace for them both. Crawford was suspended in the deathly silence, his future was stuck and he was out of breath and out of life, out of all the lives that he had never asked, never meant to make a part of him. The laughter turned into a giggle until it slipped into a sob. His lungs simply wouldn't work right to provide the air he needed.

Splash. Splash. Crawford stared at the body that was becoming wet with his tears ― tears that didn't really register.

"Schuldig." His voice broke towards the end of the name. Crawford squeezed that lump of sunset hair tighter and tighter. He needed Schuldig to answer. To break this silence. To be here. Right now. With him.

Right now, here, with him, because he had no one else left.

Crawford kept trying to breathe in and out at the same time. His wet fingers released the gun and found Schuldig's warm hand instead. He collapsed more than leaned down. His forehead touched Schuldig's chest. His fist trembled. His shoulders started to shake.

The silence persisted.


	18. Wake Him Up

**- MINDS -**

**Chapter Thirteen  
:: wake him up ::**

Nothing moved in the room. There were three operating tables, two of them occupied by unmoving red-haired figures. There was a half-naked Crawford hovering over one of them, his shoulders shaking, not making any noise. There was the body of the older precognitive with a gruesome near-smile on his sunken face, his black uniform spattered with blood. And there was the head supervisor of Rosenkreuz, huddled on his knees, his head buried in the cradle of his arms. The long black coils of hair swam in the dark red pool spreading under Komarov's body.

And then there was a sound.

Beep.

With a sharp inhale, Crawford jolted. He threw his head back and opened his eyes, blinking rapidly at the ugly green light. It hurt his eyes. His cheeks were streaked with tears. He froze to listen.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Crawford's eyes snapped over to his right. The monitor nearby had sprung back to life. His heart leaped in his chest. He dropped his eyes back to the redhead.

"Schuldig?" His voice broke a little towards the end. He searched Schuldig's face, hoping, half believing that he saw something moving ― but after a long moment of breathless waiting, he had to concede that there was no life on those pale features. Swallowing hard, Crawford closed his eyes tight. He kept wishing that something had changed by the time he opened them again, but...

Beep. Beep. Beep.

No. There was just the sound of the machine, and that same unmoving face. Crawford's trembling fingers relinquished their death grip of Schuldig's hair and searched down the telepath's bare chest. His hand was still bloody from having touched his own bleeding chest. He followed the trail of red smears his fingers left on Schuldig's body. Damn it, he could feel Schuldig's heartbeat. Why, why, why wouldn't the telepath answer? He wiped his mouth and ended up smudging his face as well, but he didn't even notice.

"Schuldig..." He drew in a long shaking breath and squeezed Schuldig's hand in his own. It was useless, useless. He kept listening to the silence, desperate to hear Schuldig's voice, but...

"Crawford."

Crawford blinked. He stared at Schuldig's face in confusion. Schuldig's lips had not moved.

"Crawford." The voice did not belong to Schuldig. It was a female voice.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

It took an extraordinarily long moment to process the fact that both the bleeping and the voice originated from behind him. Crawford glanced over his shoulder. The machine near the girl had come alive. The monitor was shining an eerie white light. She looked as pale and quiet as before.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Crawford narrowed his eyes. His hands slipped from Schuldig's body. He picked up the gun off the operating table and turned on his heels. He hurried over to the monitor and checked the flashing screen. There was only one reading ― the machine was monitoring her brain activity. His eyes widened and shot up at the girl. She looked as dead as she had before.

Yet the readings on the screen indicated that her brain was still active.

Crawford checked the screen again. The readings were fluctuating up and down like the confused flight pattern of a deranged butterfly. The sensors were most assuredly picking up something.

"Crawford."

Crawford's eyes snapped to her face. It was blank and expressionless. What the hell was going on?! Crawford abandoned the machine. He hurried over to the girl and seized her wrist to check her pulse. He stood there, his eyes searching her pale face, until he finally, finally made out a heartbeat. His eyes widened. She was still alive! How had he missed it before, and more importantly ― he glanced at the wound ― how was it _possible?!_

He stood frozen. The bleeding seemed to have stopped, which was strange enough, but what kept her still breathing? Was it the same thing that had woken the monitors, whatever that was? He had to assume that she had called his name, though now her face looked as dead as it had before. She was staring vacantly into the ceiling, her face pale and death-like.

Then her lips moved. "Crawford," she whispered. "Can't... keep her... for long."

Crawford's eyes bulged, his jaw dropped. It was another one of those moments when he knew, simply _knew_ that this was_―_

"Schuldig!" Crawford seized her shoulder. "Schuldig!"

"Crawford." Struggling, slow words, like it was difficult for her to move her lips. "Dietr..."

But Crawford didn't want to listen. "Schuldig." He grabbed her hair, almost pulled off the electrodes hidden under the lush red coils. "Schuldig, can you hear me?"

A growl rattled out. Crawford thought he could hear something like a curse, then an idea more than a voice pierced his consciousness.

"Wake him up." With the words came other things, images, ideas in his head. Crawford didn't need to ask who "he" was.

_Wake him up._

_Don't ask questions, just do it, now, now, now._

Crawford went on automatic. Without a second thought, he spun on his heels. His honey-brown eyes burned with a dark fever from under black eyebrows directly at the huddled figure that was still clinging onto Komarov's body. Crawford no longer saw an illusion of a child ― he did not even remember ever having seen one. His eyes fixed on target, refusing to acknowledge the dead body on the floor, he stepped over to Dietrich. He buried his hand into the black hair near the neck and collected a handsome bunch in his fist, then proceeded to pulling the telepath off the dead body. With a seamless sequence, Crawford threw Dietrich on his back on the floor, kicked his arm down, pinned it to the floor with his knee and slapped the other hand aside while going for Dietrich's gun. He pulled the weapon out of the holster.

A gun in each hand, Crawford knelt on top of Dietrich's body, the muzzles of both weapons nestled snugly under Dietrich's chin. Surprisingly, the man wasn't struggling. Dietrich's face was smeared with tears and blood. The lines on his face seemed more pronounced, like someone had carved the shadows deeper. He was lying on his back in Crawford's grip like a man who had been dead for days; his body was stiff, his skin pallid, his eyes glazed over, only his mouth moving. He kept gasping. Myriad streaks of bright white hair surrounded his face, giving his ebony hair a dark grey tone.

Those had never been there before.

Dietrich gasped for breath like a man coming up for air. "Mitya." Hoarsely, he kept repeating the name. "Mitya." His eyes remained glazed. He gasped several times. "Mit-Mitya..."

Though Crawford had never heard the pet name before, he knew immediately who "Mitya" was. Pain twisted his face as he spat out the words, "He isn't here." He might have added so many more words, bitter words. _Thanks to you fucking asshole, he'll never be here again!_

Dietrich shuddered, and Crawford took pleasure from the idea that maybe the telepath heard every single one of his unspoken accusations. Maybe somewhere in that paralysed confusion, reality was making an impact.

"Mitya," Dietrich hissed. "Mitya!"

Crawford could think of nothing but the command reverberating through his head. _Wake him up._ He buried the tips of the guns into the telepath's throat. He made sure it hurt.

"I'll fucking pull the trigger," Crawford warned him, his eyes gleaming dangerously from under his brows. "Just give me the excuse."

Right now, he meant it. He meant every word. He wasn't thinking about the future or about whether or not he might need Dietrich or any number of the logical things he normally considered. No. Right now, there was only hatred and rage.

And the command. _Wake him up._

Dietrich's chest rose and fell rapidly. His hands were shaking, his entire body was shaking. "I must... I must retrieve him."

Crawford shook his head. "You can't," he snapped.

Dietrich's face twisted into a terrible snarl. "I must! I must retrieve him!" His hands snaked up. Dietrich's fingers clenched around Crawford's wrists like red-hot iron clasps ― his skin was burning hot.

Crawford opened his mouth. But before he had got a word out, something erupted from Dietrich's hands. Crawford felt pain throughout his body, and the next he knew, he was sliding on his back along the floor. He came to a stop a good ten feet away, almost hit his head to something. Dietrich's blood-soaked hair smacked against his chest as he took to his feet with a single feline motion. He turned back towards the body at his feet.

Crawford stared, wide-eyed. Dietrich's feverish eyes searched the bloodied figure, taking no notice of Crawford. He wiped his face with one hand, then ran his fingers through his hair, or tried to ― his fingers got tangled into the bloodied knotted mess. Dietrich let out a choked sound and fell on his knees. He groped for a hold of his partner's uniform.

"Still with me. Still with me... Mitya... Mitya... still... with... me..." His voice fading into a series of incoherent sobs, he fell face first right on top of Komarov's body, his mouth open, his lips moving without sound.

His every muscle rippling with tension, Crawford started to slowly get up on his feet. He meant to walk back to Dietrich and demand that the man snap out of it. But his hands fell, the guns hanging limp by his sides. For a long moment, he was breathless, motionless, planless. How had Dietrich thrown him across the floor so effortlessly? And moreover, Dietrich's words made him dizzy, maybe only because of the girl. The girl was still alive. If she could survive a knife to the chest, might it be possible that Komarov...

...wait. Thinking about the girl made Crawford suddenly become conscious of what had been happening the past few minutes. The girl had given him a command, and he had obeyed because... because... because it was... it was Schuldig? He dragged his eyes over to the girl. Was it really Schuldig he had heard?

Should he be questioning his instructions?

The girl was lying completely still again. Maybe he had imagined the whole thing. Crawford started to tremble, he was frustrated and angry. He wanted to just end this. He wanted to abandon any hope of saving anybody. Killing everyone would be so much easier. He wanted death to cleanse him of these connections he had never asked for, never welcomed, and most of all, he wanted death to free him of this evil spirit called Adelbert Dietrich!

Crawford's face fell flaccid. Slowly, he raised his hands. He aimed. Dietrich was an easy target, he didn't seem to even notice anything going on behind him. A couple of clean shots to the head, and it would be done.

Done.

But even in his haze, some part of Crawford kept clinging on to logic, and logic dictated that if he wanted to survive, he needed to consider the facts. He was working without allies. Dietrich had probably switched off all security recordings from this section of the laboratories. If anybody discovered them like this, there would be questions, and what was Crawford supposed to say? He could always give them his own memories, but did he really want to expose his private feelings, not to mention everything that had transpired here? And even if he did, would it be enough, would they believe him? What of the girl, could she be saved, would she testify ― and thus, he was back thinking about who to save and who to let die. He was wasting precious time, but if he ran out calling for medics now, without a plan, without knowing who to trust, he risked relinquishing all control of his own fate. And what of Schuldig's fate?

What of Schuldig's fate?

Confused scraps of facts mixed with emotional responses. His head was spinning with thoughts, furiously trying to wrestle out some sort of a logical pattern. But the only fact that remained was that Crawford was working in the blind. He felt sick. For one desperate second, he hated his mentor for leaving him with so little to work on. And then he felt even more sick.

Oh, how he needed Schuldig right now! Having a telepath of his own would give him the edge he needed.

"Schuldig," he tried.

But there was no answer. Her lips didn't even twitch to make a reply. Maybe Schuldig's consciousness had slipped away again. And in the absence of Schuldig, Crawford just might need Dietrich. Somewhere in that pain-addled brain of his, Dietrich must have known how to bring Schuldig back. And besides, there was the command. _Wake him up._ Crawford wasn't even sure what that meant, but it was his only guidance.

Crawford lowered the weapons again.

"Herr Dietrich." With unsteady feet, Crawford walked closer. "The girl is alive. I don't know for how long. We need to get someone here... a biokinetic..."

But Dietrich kept whispering to himself. Crawford stared at the pathetic mess. He was at a loss. Dietrich wasn't responding to logic, and what else did Crawford have to offer?

"Herr Dietrich." Crawford slipped Schuldig's gun under the waistband of his trousers and leaned over to set his hand on Dietrich's shoulder.

The reaction was shocking. Dietrich gasped and seized Crawford's wrist, pulling so forcefully that the precognitive fell on his knees. Dietrich cradled Crawford's hand to his chest.

Crawford wanted to tell the vile creature to let go. It didn't help that for a flickering second, he saw the ten-year-old boy again. Crawford got angry. His upper lip curled in disgust. A coward's move, to hide behind an illusion! He almost shook Dietrich off, but then... the choked sobs registered. He took one more second before reacting. Dietrich did not sound nor look like he was in control of himself enough to consciously generate any kind of a disguise. For the first time, Crawford suspected that the boy was, in fact, more a vision than a mind trick. Perhaps Crawford's own talent was misbehaving. Perhaps he was seeing a child because emotionally, that was what Dietrich was right now.

Perhaps Herr Adelbert Dietrich, the head supervisor of Rosenkreuz, simply wasn't here.

Crawford's anger ebbed away, to be replaced with confusion. _Wake him up,_ Schuldig had told him. Was that what Schuldig meant ― Crawford needed to snap Dietrich out of this? But how? Crawford wasn't sure what to do with the shuddering mess that had claimed his hand. Anger and rage had got him nowhere. So what, then?

...kindness? Crawford made a face. The exercise wasn't particularly appealing. The idea of offering comfort to this monster felt odd and wrong.

But odd and wrong or not... Crawford was running against merciless time and he had no better ideas. He wrapped one tentative arm around Dietrich's shoulders ― and was shocked to discover that Dietrich leaned in and rested his shoulder against Crawford's chest. The telepath kept clinging onto Komarov's uniform with one hand and Crawford's wrist with the other.

It took Crawford a long minute to decide how to proceed. All words kept dying on his lips. He still refused to look at his mentor's quiet body. He held the man he hated, his eyes fixed to the distance, and he might have laughed at the absurdity of it all, if it wasn't that he might cry. He closed his eyes, squeezed them shut against the pressure building somewhere within. He needed to pull Dietrich out of this frozen state, but it didn't help that he didn't really want to move any more than Dietrich did.

"Herr Dietrich." The words came out slow, reluctant. "Herr Komarov needs medical attention." Going along with Dietrich's delusion was the only thing he could think of that might work. If Dietrich really believed that his partner could be restored, he should respond to the implication that something had to be done to help Komarov.

Dietrich blinked. His eyes were fixed on Komarov's face. "Mitya," he whispered. "Still with me." Dietrich's voice broke.

Crawford wanted to shake the man. With superhuman strength, he kept his voice level and calm. "Yes. He needs help." Crawford kept his eyes on the opposite wall. He reminded himself that Komarov's body was just a lifeless, limp thing, merely an empty hull. Maybe it had never been anything else. If Crawford's interpretation of what he had sensed while linked with Dietrich was correct, Komarov's mind had been destroyed a long time ago.

Dietrich kept blinking, and then, finally, he turned his head. His eyes found Crawford's face. Crawford turned to meet the grey eyes. He had never seen such a lost, vulnerable expression on Dietrich's face.

"Ora... Oracle." Dietrich's voice cracked.

Finally, the man recognised him! Crawford steeled himself. There was a number of things he didn't want the telepath picking up from his mind right now. It was a gamble, getting Dietrich back into his senses. It could be his worst mistake. The man might decide to blame all this on Crawford, or...

"Oracle..." Dietrich's eyes grew wider and wider. His pupils contracted until they almost disappeared out of sight. The man's eyes began to glow faintly. His lips twisted suddenly, his entire face transformed into a grimace, and a groan erupted deep from his chest. His fingers released the death grip on Komarov's uniform while his other hand crawled hungrily up Crawford's arm. And then he spoke ― with a very different yet familiar intonation. "Crawford..."

Crawford froze. Dietrich never used that name. He didn't dare to hope, not again, yet... yet...

A faint smile grazed Dietrich's lips and Crawford thought, for a fleeting second, that the glowing eyes looked blue, not grey. "Crawford," whispered Dietrich's lips, and it sounded nothing like Dietrich and everything like Schuldig, or was that just wishful thinking?

Crawford had a million questions but his tongue was numb. Cold chills ran up and down Crawford's spine. His fingers went as numb as his tongue. He couldn't believe that this could be Schuldig. He almost threw away the beast from his hands ― everything that had been happening was so far beyond anything even remotely within the realm of possibility that his brain was starting to refuse to process it. Schuldig's consciousness taking over other bodies; even dead ones..? What, would he wake Komarov next?

And was this really Schuldig, or some kind of an evil spirit? Crawford's hands started to shake.

The glowing eyes kept staring at him. Without a word, the telepath groped at his utility belt until he found a small device. He brought it up to his lips, his eyes never leaving Crawford's face. "Composer to Watchman. I need two cryo units and a medical team. Prepare for critical injuries."

A female voice rattled out. "Did something go wrong, Herr Dietrich?"

Dietrich's lips curled. "Just do it, Kingsley!" With a flick of the thumb, the telepath switched off the device. His hand fell.

The grey eyes kept staring at Crawford. Crawford got the strong feeling that there was something behind those eyes, some thought that wouldn't surface, something he almost heard but not quite. He kept having questions but they were all locked in his lungs much like his breath and in the end, maybe they were all one and the same question ― _is it really you?_ But he didn't really want to ask the question, because if it wasn't Schuldig, he didn't want to hear it, not again. He had reached and caught nothing too many times, he didn't want to reach again.

The telepath slipped the device back on his belt and raised his hand. His fingertips brushed Crawford's chin. "You look like shit, Crawford," he murmured. His thumb swept over Crawford's cheek.

Finally, Crawford managed words, or rather, one word ― one name. "Schuldig." He meant it as a question, but his voice simply wouldn't rise to make it so.

Something in the telepath's eyes softened, as did his voice. "Took you long enough."

Crawford's eyes wandered on that face, that face where everything was wrong, starting from the expression and ending with the features. Everything inside him was trying to both believe and not-believe that he was really talking with his partner. He had been disappointed so many times, too many times, and his world had ended and restarted too many times for him to even know whether it was still spinning.

And somehow, out of the million things he could have said, and billion things he could have asked, the first thing to fall off his lips was, "Your body is over there." He nodded in that direction.

The faintly glowing grey eyes didn't follow the gesture, they remained fixed on Crawford's face. A set of warm, warm fingers fanned out on Crawford's cheek, then searched down, on the throat and then the collarbone, and lower, lower, on the chest. Crawford's muscles contracted with pain as the telepath's thumb passed over the cross-shaped wound. But the grey, faintly glowing eyes never moved from Crawford's face like he was looking for something.

"Drugs," he then said, as though it was an answer ― and it was, because Crawford had the question. _Why are you in his body and not in your own?_

Crawford's eyes widened. Suddenly, a bunch of other questions and answers splintered into his consciousness. "The link," he whispered, and that short statement was really a whole string of words. _He pulled you into a mind link. Your body is sedated. You're awake but your body isn't._ He was making conclusions fast, the pieces were coming together like he was assembling a shattered mosaic. _His defences are down. You're in control of the link now._ Crawford heard more and more words, impressions, ideas, scattered and confused, all stumbling on each other.

_==Couldn't get to you==Can you hear me?==Crawford, Crawford==Here==You're not there... or... I'm not here, or... we are in some other place==Crawford? Crawford?==_

The black eyebrows crumpled to a frown, and then, finally, a more sensible message, _»__What happened?__»_

Crawford might have sputtered a hundred questions, starting from the confused demand that how could Schuldig not know what was happening if he could access Dietrich's thoughts and memories. But, in the end, all that mattered right now was that he recognised that telepathic voice.

"It's you." Finally, disbelief gave way to understanding and the resulting certainty. "Schuldig. It's you."

The telepath kept staring, staring, staring. And then he blinked, his eyelids fell only to open again to reveal two brilliant blue spheres. The rest of the telepath's face transformed as well, until Crawford was looking at very familiar fine features surrounded by a shock of red hair. The answer was transmitted telepathically. It was only a name ― _»__Crawford.__»_ ― but it meant "yes" in a hundred languages.

_Yes. Yes, Crawford. Yes._

Crawford's lips melted into a smile, his entire body melted like an ice sculpture melts in the sun. He dropped the gun and cupped the telepath's face in between his palms. He leaned in, forgetting for one blissful second that those blue eyes were not really there and that those lips that met his own were the wrong ones. The telepath's body arched up, rising into the kiss like the tide rises to embrace the shore. With a tiny whimper, Schuldig's mouth opened to welcome Crawford's tongue. His hands kept searching Crawford's body, draping around his waist to pull him closer.

Hungry, hungry, and warm, so very warm.

At long last, the world stopped spinning. Crawford fell into peace: a silent place where nothing needed to matter ever again, because right here, everything was all right, and the next moment would never come. Time held its breath...

...until it cruelly let it out again and crashed into Crawford's consciousness, or perhaps it crashed into something that was just a little more than one man's mind. With a gasp, the kiss fell apart, and they were staring at each other in the eyes, the same words on both their lips.

"They're coming," they said in perfect sync. Crawford had no idea which one of them had known it first. He felt dizzy. They were both gasping, and Crawford's chest swelled with every breath like some living thing was trying to burst out of his lungs. It hurt, his entire body hurt. But most of all, it hurt to look at those blue spheres fading into grey and those fine features dissolving to reveal the face underneath.

Crawford wanted to tell Schuldig to put the mask back on and let him kiss him some more, but he knew they had no time. The glow in the grey eyes dimmed until it died away completely. And then the door of the room slammed open. A tall, lean figure appeared in the doorway. The presence of an outsider triggered Crawford's defence mechanisms. The look in his eyes became sharper as did everything else, until he was all sharp edges.

"Oh my God!" a woman's shrill voice screamed. "Dmitri!" Hurried footsteps crossed the floor. A female figure fell on her knees next to Komarov's body, her shaking hands reaching to examine the body, to test the pulse, to put pressure on the wound, everything all at once. "Dmitri!"

Crawford lost a minute to sheer shock. He recognised her, but he had never seen such an expression on her face. Beth Kingsley, code name Watchman, always looked displeased and gave a standoffish impression. He had never seen her as much as talking with his mentor, nor had Komarov ever mentioned her. He would never have expected her to fall apart over him like this.

Dietrich ― Schuldig ― removed his head from between Crawford's hands. He turned to view her from over his shoulder, then pivoted his upper body and seized both her wrists to force them off Komarov's body. She looked up, her eyes welling with tears, her face twisting with rage.

"You monster! What did you do to him?" She tried to struggle, but his grip was like steel.

The telepath dragged her up on her feet, his eyes pierced hers. "Calm down." He mimicked Dietrich's cold, commanding tone with absolute perfection. His eyes snagged hers, she stopped trying to free her hands. Tears spilled down her face as she blinked, but little by little, her face changed until all expression fell away completely.

Crawford got on his feet slowly. It wasn't as though he hadn't seen Schuldig working his telepathic magic before, but never had he so easily soothed an upset person. His method was normally subtle, like a slow knife pushed quietly through his victims' shields. But this was quick, effortless like a stab that punctured her lungs to steal the wind from her resistance. It reminded him of a particular black-hearted telepath's style, and for one terrible second, Crawford worried that Dietrich had regained control of his body.

The grey eyes flicked in his direction. _»__I've got this.__»_ The voice that carried over the telepathic frequency was still Schuldig's.

It was relief, perhaps, that got Crawford sending out a light-toned response. _»__I thought you didn't know what's going on.__»_

The telepath returned a tiny wicked smirk. _»__I can bluff it until we're in private.__»_

And so the past clicked into place and they fell into a familiar pattern as though it was just another mission. Crawford didn't ask if Schuldig was sure about this. Schuldig didn't ask if Crawford was ready. Schuldig had the intel, and Crawford was always prepared, or if he wasn't, he would fake it. They were professionals, and they trusted one another to take care of business.

Right now, Crawford welcomed business. There was comfort in it. Without it, Crawford might remember that a particular older man lying motionless at their feet would never move again.


	19. The Wrong Voice

**- MINDS -**

**Chapter Fourteen  
:: the wrong voice ::**

They were sitting on the couch in the head supervisor's private living room in heavy, oppressive silence broken only by the steady bleeping of the machine at the other end of the room. The machine was hooked up to a red-haired young man lying on top of a transportable operating table. It had required a bit of work to get the body up here, but neither of them had been willing to let it out of their sight. They both had a vested interest in its continued survival.

All the doors were locked, all the people were gone. It was just the two of them, side by side on the couch, staring at the motionless redhead. Finally, they had the opportunity to talk in private.

Neither of them had said a word in good twenty minutes.

Crawford supported his elbows to his knees. His fingers were knit, his face stoic and emotionless. He was wearing a pair of black trousers and a white shirt borrowed from Dietrich's wardrobe. The shirt covered the bandages that were wrapped around his chest. Though he had a blistering headache, his body was aching and he was so tired he might have dropped from exhaustion, he looked calm and composed. Right down to his glasses, his armour was back on ― Brad Crawford was put back together, not a single detail out of place.

It was not quite so with Schuldig.

"This is fucking messed up." The man sitting next to Crawford had Dietrich's clothes. He had Dietrich's body, Dietrich's voice.

The wrong clothes, the wrong body, the wrong voice.

Crawford kept his eyes on the correct body ― the one with flame-like hair. Only a low grunt deep from his throat acknowledged Schuldig's words.

The grey eyes flicked in his direction. The black eyebrows crumpled to a frown. "What, you waiting for me to read your mind?"

Crawford tapped his thumbs together. He took a deep breath. He leaned back with the exhale. "I'd rather you read _his_," he said quietly. He didn't bother saying the hateful name out loud.

The telepath scoffed. "That would be difficult."

At this, Crawford directed a surprised look at the telepath, but the face he saw caught him off guard. The dark grey hair surrounding the harsh lines, all wrong. Schuldig was filtered through this wrong body, distorted by it. Crawford's eyelids fluttered, and he looked away again.

The grey eyes studied Crawford's face relentlessly.

They lost another few minutes to silence where neither really had anything to say.

The precognitive was the first one to reel his thoughts back on track. "If you've lost him..."

The telepath cut him off irritably. "I haven't lost him! He's..." The grey eyes fell to the floor. "He's..." The telepath's voice faded away. His lips formed a tense line.

Crawford let out another exhale. The words didn't come easy, but he forced the suggestion out. "He's still trying to retrieve Herr Komarov?"

The telepath pursed his lips. "It's more complicated than that."

Crawford's voice was like steel. "Can he hear us?"

The telepath looked away, a distracted expression on his face. His fingers moved nervously on his knee while he shook his head.

"Not right now."

Crawford's eyes moved carefully, not daring to climb up very high along the telepath's body for fear of catching a glimpse of the face he didn't want to see. He watched the telepath's fingers closing around the grip of Dietrich's gun. They lingered there for a second before the telepath suddenly stood up.

Crawford watched him go. He rolled back his shoulders and had to remind himself again that it wasn't Dietrich. This was Dietrich's body, but those cat-like steps, the way those hips moved, relaxed and confident, they were all Schuldig.

Like a dark ghost, the telepath flitted across the room. He stopped near the operating table to stand there like a tall, silent shadow, staring at the red-orange mop. One hand moved slowly, then paused, only half an inch from the pale face. He lingered, his intent eyes fixed on the unconscious body. Crawford's thoughts strayed for just a moment. He had seen this before, that shadow hovering over Schuldig, those intense grey eyes piercing their red-haired victim.

And then came the question Crawford had dreaded for years but failed to anticipate.

"How long have you known?"

Crawford's fingers clenched, he balled his hands to fists on top of his knees. He might have believed that it was his own stray thought that triggered the question; but those thoughts had been lurking in Schuldig's mind for years. The pause was heavy with unspoken words. Crawford kept his breathing steady, steady, steady, as steady as his voice.

"About what?"

The telepath didn't turn. "About their link." There was something meaningful about the pause before he added, "About all this."

Crawford's expression remained emotionless. "Define 'this'."

A short silence, then a quiet, chilling, mirthless laugh rippled out. It was almost inaudible and completely unobtrusive, like a slip of paper passed under the door, as were the soft words spoken soon after.

"You didn't think I should know."

Crawford didn't flinch, didn't even blink. The dark figure swivelled on his heels. A pair of blue eyes flashed into view from over the telepath's shoulder. Vibrant and vicious, they stole Crawford's breath. The black-grey-striped hair was washed away as though it was paint, revealing a stream of orange-red fire from underneath.

A quiet voice drifted from between a pair of illusionary lips. "I see."

_No, you don't. You don't see. It's not like that._ Crawford wanted to say all these things. But his lips wouldn't move. Perhaps he had believed, once upon a time, that he had all the answers ready when this question came, but now that the time was here, after all this, after all the mistakes and the pain... every excuse sounded hollow.

Not because the reasons had changed. They had not. The reasons were the same and in fact, perhaps they were more potent and more powerful today than they had ever been years ago when Crawford had first begun to understand that Schuldig was something different. The dark figure across the room was the physical manifestation of all his excuses ― Schuldig and Dietrich together, as a single entity. But at the same time, the reasons turned into causes to an unforeseen consequence, and Crawford could not help but wonder, by not telling Schuldig all the facts, had he really protected Schuldig ― or condemned him?

Just how far in the past _was_ his mistake?

While Crawford watched, the telepath crossed the room back to the couch. His boots sank deep in the luxurious carpet. The ethereal, celestial blue didn't relinquish their target for a second. Once Schuldig was directly in front of Crawford, he stopped. And then he stood very still.

He was waiting.

Crawford's voice was barely above a whisper. "It's got nothing to do with trust."

At this, the telepath raised his hand slowly. The back of his fingers brushed over Crawford's cheek. The precognitive's eyelids fluttered briefly, reacting to the instinctive need to move, to invite that touch. A faint smile crept on Schuldig's lips. A single slender forefinger traced a line from the cheek to the tense line of Crawford's mouth.

"Ssh," Schuldig hushed as his finger caressed Crawford's lower lip. "That was the deal, yeah? You have your secrets, I have mine. We don't owe each other anything."

The blue eyes held him, kept him under their spell. Crawford saw no anger, no hurt. Schuldig had never been quite so sober and mature when discovering that his partner had kept something important from him. Crawford could do nothing but stare, uncertain if this calm reaction was genuine, or if a storm lurked somewhere behind the mask of serenity.

If it was, it was hidden ten feet underground and deeper, deep in the vast embrace of the ocean floor. The telepath dropped his hand. His eyes on Crawford's face, he shook the jacket off his shoulders and down his arms. He let it fall on the floor and left it there as he flopped back on the couch. He tossed his legs up and into Crawford's lap, one lazy foot at a time.

"It's fine." Schuldig crossed his arms behind his head. "However, under the circumstances, I think we can't afford secrets. So..." His eyes twinkled mischievously. "How about this. I tell you what I know. And then you tell me what you know. Preferably including why daddy precious tried to turn me into a zombie minion."

Crawford gave him a slow sidelong look. "Daddy precious?"

A laugh of Schuldig's familiar fiendish variety rippled out. "You know Herr Dietrich always fancied himself as the father I never had." The telepath waggled his boots in Crawford's lap. "These are awfully uncomfortable."

Without really giving it a second thought, Crawford's hands began to move to take the hint. He kept his eyes on the telepath's calm face while starting to work on removing Schuldig's boots. It still seemed unlikely that he would be getting off the hook so easily.

The blue eyes kept staring expectantly.

Finally, Crawford looked down ― it was the closest to a nod Schuldig would receive. Crawford's voice was quiet. "So how much do you know?"

"You mean how much do I remember."

Crawford's gave a brief nod. The blue eyes drilled holes in his brain. He pulled off the first boot and dropped it on the floor.

Schuldig tilted his head to the side. "I remember the forest."

Crawford froze for a second. A flash of memories spilled into his mind uninvited. He remembered Schuldig's last words. Such unexpected, undecipherable, unlikely words.

_Oh, look... Crawford._

But he also remembered other words. Ones spoken on the telepathic plane.

_Your fault or your failure, Crawford?_

An involuntary spasm went through Crawford's fingers. He would like to believe that those words hadn't really been Schuldig's. He might have asked, but then again, if it had been Schuldig, Crawford didn't really want to know. He couldn't process even the suggestion right now. Without sacrificing a second more to the questions, he returned to his task and began to remove the other boot. His movements were mechanic, as was his voice.

"You must remember something more."

Silence lingered again between them, heavy like an iron cloak, while Crawford focused on pulling off the boot. Schuldig helped the operation by lifting his leg. Crawford tossed the boot on the floor. Schuldig's eyes followed the quick flick of his hand and got lost in the way. His attention trailed off somewhere into the depths of the luxurious carpet.

"I don't remember anything after the forest." Schuldig's voice had an absent, distracted note. "I think he kept me drugged up the whole time. The first thing I remember is..." The blue eyes darted up from under Schuldig's fine eyebrows, settling on Crawford's quiet figure like a lost man looking for a map. "Your voice. I remember your voice."

The only response was a single quick flutter of Crawford's eyelids. A slowly developing pout expressed Crawford's firm refusal to respond, but not for the lack of words. He simply had too many.

Perhaps the telepath across the couch was picking all his words right off his head. The blue spheres didn't let go. Schuldig's whisper was nearly inaudible. "I guess it's been a while."

Crawford's tongue barely moved to acknowledge. "A while."

He might have given Schuldig the count of the days and the weeks, but right now, he had lost the ability to produce numbers. He could not even bring to mind how long it had been. All measures of time lost their meaning. The master of time let his servant slip from his hands in favour of a single truth: Schuldig was here now, and that was all that mattered. Crawford's fingers closed to clasp Schuldig's ankle. At the touch, he sensed Schuldig's eyes on him better. Though he couldn't actually see them, he sensed the blue eyes swelling like an ocean ― closer, closer.

Crawford's lips moved mechanically, only because it was the only way he managed to make a sound. "What do you remember?" His lips were dry, his mouth felt like sandpaper, yet he kept his voice from breaking.

"Just your voice. You were calling to me. But... but I couldn't find you. It's..." A faint, mirthless smile wriggled over Schuldig's mouth. He shook his head. "It's like I didn't know where either one of us was."

Crawford swallowed several times. His jaws moved. He had so many words. So many lonely nights' worth of past to recount. But in the end, what was there to tell? _You were gone. I was alone. I learned all over again how much I always needed you... and I remembered how much I didn't want to need you._ All these were self-evident facts, ones Schuldig would know from spending a minute in Crawford's life. Useless words, unnecessary words.

And so his voice was toneless, his eyes remained with the opposite wall, his words remained with the business. "You must have picked up something from Herr Dietrich's mind while we were all linked."

But though everything on the outside was perfectly in place, under control, nothing on the inside was. He sat frozen in place, staring into the distance, his hands holding tight to Schuldig's ankle, his thoughts holding tight to something else, something that was in the past.

Schuldig drew his tongue slowly over his lips. Perhaps he wanted to taste those thoughts Crawford kept locked inside, or perhaps he, too, lingered with the shadows of all the times they had shared each others' thoughts once upon a time long ago, before and after this thing they called trust. Slowly, Schuldig's fingers slipped into what currently appeared to be a thick red mass of hair. He massaged his scalp and closed his eyes, raising his chin and arching his back, apparently to make himself more comfortable. He let out a long exhale and opened his eyes only to stare at the ceiling.

The bait was well laid out, the trap perfectly set. Crawford stole a quick glance at him from the corner of his eye. As though Schuldig might not notice, if he did it fast enough.

A tiny smile poked its way on Schuldig's lips. As he continued to talk, his drawl was relaxed. "I only got glimpses. Some thoughts, mostly memories. It was barely enough to take us this far." He gave a lazy shrug. "You were in the link too. You don't remember much more. Why do you think it'd be different for me?"

Crawford offered the excuse calmly, "You're a telepath." His voice remained in control. His eyes did not.

Schuldig snorted. "Yeah?" He directed a wicked smirk at Crawford. "Was it easy to keep track of who you are in the link? Or did it all just _explode_?" As though to demonstrate, he shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair, throwing the cascade of red fire all over the cushions. He kept smirking from within the mess of sunset chaos, with teeth white and shining, bared to leer at Crawford's attempt not to look at the performance.

A slight frown creased Crawford's forehead as he dragged his eyes up to meet Schuldig's. He didn't really need to answer, and so he didn't. _This isn't the time nor the place for this game,_ he was saying.

With a sultry laugh, Schuldig chose not to pursue the prize, if only because Crawford's affronted silence was prize enough. He shook his head and returned to the subject.

"Well. Take that confusion and make it tenfold. That's how it's like for me. If I connect too deep, it's not me anymore." He flicked his hand in a nonchalant gesture as though he was waving off a pestering insect. "I can't... I can't keep it sorted. It's... it's..." Obviously unable to find the right words to conclude his argument, he let a blast of air out of his lungs and gestured with his hand again.

Crawford was pointedly not watching. All those quick, fast gestures, all that life. Schuldig kept being Schuldig, he kept being everything Crawford had missed seeing, everything he kept wanting to touch but didn't dare to, only because he didn't want to break the spell. Schuldig was finally here again, yet... yet it wasn't Schuldig.

Crawford kept staring at the opposite wall.

In the silence that followed, Schuldig's attention drifted elsewhere. His chest swelled to pick up more than their fill of air. More and more, like nothing could ever be enough. His expression softened, his eyes moved away. To the carpet again. And just like that, like water circling the drain, he was being pulled away, sucked somewhere else, into a different place where he was never alone.

"You can't even imagine what it's like to have them inside so deep," Schuldig murmured. "They're down there, you know. In the labs. Chained up. Drugged up. Barely any mind left in any of them. He used them like guinea pigs."

There was no sign on Crawford's face that the suggestion of the test subjects' suffering was processed on any level that might be perceived as human. Crawford's face remained stoic and silent, and when he spoke, it was not to offer sympathy, or at least, not to anything other than their continued struggle for their own survival.

"Herr Dietrich was part of the link," Crawford said coolly. His tone and the tense line of his mouth were all business. "I don't see why you didn't hear what he was thinking."

The distance disappeared from the blue eyes. Schuldig directed a dirty look at Crawford. "You don't see it because you're not a telepath. You don't understand. Herr Dietrich and I..." In mid-sentence, Schuldig swallowed his voice. He looked away, and when he continued to talk, his halting words revealed his displeasure at disclosing these facts. "We're... different. He... he always stays outside. He can shut it off." Schuldig frowned. "That's how he stays in control. He never loses his identity completely." Schuldig's voice dragged, then concluded with a sullen, reluctant admission, "It's harder for me."

Crawford's eyes fell to the tips of his shoes. Quietly, without him really even noticing it was happening, his hands began to move. His fingers felt about the telepath's ankle, tested its shape, much like he had searched the shape of Schuldig's face in the woods. Understanding was blossoming in the privacy of the pause which they permitted to one another. Together, they stared at the carpet for another long, long moment. Crawford's fingers kept massaging Schuldig's foot.

Perhaps it was pride that chased Schuldig into continuing, because his tone was slightly defensive. "Yeah, well. Control's his strength, but when you _do_ break it..." Schuldig shook his head. "When you crash the gate... well, yeah. The weight of so many minds would crush any telepath, but he's so unaccustomed to the pressure, it's too much, he doesn't bounce back so easily. He can't take it."

Crawford remembered the memory Schuldig had once shared with him. As a child, Schuldig had thrown Dietrich's sins back into his head like he might swing a sledgehammer. Dietrich had retaliated cruelly. As punishment, the man had set a telepathic trigger in Schuldig's head that made all that pain crash down on Schuldig every time the word was spoken, but... Schuldig had overcome the word. He had owned it, claimed it.

Taken it for a name.

And as he thought about it, something in Crawford's eyes flashed into life, like a light bulb switched on. He turned to Schuldig. The golden spheres burned from under the black bangs.

"But you can."

Schuldig's eyelids fluttered. He peered at Crawford quizzically, then shrugged.

"It's different for me. He's always on the outside. But I'm on the inside." A smug smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. "That's why I'll always beat him."

A tiny smile was crawling up the length of Crawford's face. "That's why he needed you."

Schuldig raised one quizzical eyebrow. His expression changed, slowly towards something more attentive. He was catching on. Crawford was getting at something.

"You can link with them in a way that he can't," Crawford elaborated. "He just mimics them. Mirrors them. But you _become_ them."

"I guess you could put it that way." Schuldig frowned. "So?"

"Herr Dietrich wanted to use us somehow to build a weapon. At first, I thought he was planning on stealing our powers, but even a telepath can't do that. How do you transfer something that's part of your psyche? You can't use someone else's powers. You can only suggest what someone else should do." Crawford cocked his head to the side. "But how about channelling their powers? It happened to us in the forest. You shared my vision."

Schuldig gave him an odd look. "Yeah. I _shared_ with you. I wouldn't say I was channelling your power. It wasn't me using your gift, it was still you. To be a particular type of psychic, you have to be that type of psychic."

Crawford cocked an eyebrow. "But that's just it."

Schuldig blinked. "What?"

"You." Crawford's crushed Schuldig's ankle in his grip. "You can become other people."

At this, the blue eyes widened.

"If you link deep enough?" Crawford's eyes demanded him to admit that the possibility was there.

Schuldig hesitated, then gave an uncomfortable shrug. "Even if I could, what use would that be? To get that deep into someone's head, I'd have to lose myself. I told you what it's like. It wouldn't be me anymore. It would be just a big bunch of thoughts without an end or a beginning. The link would eventually lose cohesion. I'd be destroyed. And the minds I tried to link with, they'd just... fall apart."

Crawford's mouth had already been open in order to continue talking, but suddenly, like Schuldig had just put a fist into his gut, Crawford froze. His mouth closed, his expression deflated and then died away completely. The precognitive turned away. He barely even noticed the way Schuldig's watchful eyes stayed on him. The telepath's choice of words triggered memories and thoughts. Crawford was thinking about a painful, distorted, vague memory his mentor had once shared with him. The memory of how Dietrich had destroyed Komarov's mind.

Was that how it had happened?

Another long silence drifted between them. The blue eyes kept watching. Crawford's thoughts wandered in a bottomless ocean of questions. Perhaps the telepath was hearing every one of those thoughts. Did he know the answers to Crawford's questions? He was connected to Dietrich's mind. He must have understood the connection Dietrich had shared with Komarov. Perhaps he even knew of its origins. Part of Crawford might have wanted to ask Schuldig what the telepath knew ― but the rest of him was not willing to bring it up.

Ever again.

With great effort, Crawford moved the questions from his mind. He should focus on the present, not the past. Blinking furiously, he drove back the distracting past that threatened his future.

"What if Herr Dietrich believed there was a way to keep the link from falling apart?" Crawford's voice was calm, but his voice was quiet. "If he locked minds with you and then connected you to the other minds... your link with the other minds would be as good as a part of him. Right? He would be able to channel that vast mass of energy through you."

"I guess. Maybe. For a little while." Schuldig sounded skeptical. "But what good would that do? We'd still be nothing but a big bunch of thoughts in his head. Locking minds with me would mean he'd have to experience everything I do. He wouldn't be able to hold it together. Eventually, we'd swallow him and shatter him as well."

Crawford refused to even glance at Schuldig. He didn't want to see that face right now, not with these thoughts so close to the surface. He needed to keep his thoughts firmly on business.

Unfortunately, business was all about _these thoughts_.

His hands were starting to shake slightly. He knew that these were the answers. The answers he had looked for so long. He had been focused on trying to understand forces on other planes of existence. He had even considered other dimensions, demons and ghosts and spirits. But the answer was right there, right inside him, it had been with him for as long as Schuldig had been with him, because they were the answer together.

"What if he channelled someone who can't be shattered?" Crawford whispered.

The skeptical look fell away. The blue eyes widened. For a long, long moment, Schuldig said nothing at all, but the look on his face spoke louder than words. He was listening. Intently.

Words dripped off Crawford's lips slowly, slowly. "He needed a clairvoyant. Clairvoyant minds are tuned differently. We're never fully here. We can create a space that telepaths can use as an anchor."

Schuldig's eyes kept widening. His profound silence was all the confirmation Crawford needed. The telepath, too, thought that it was possible.

Schuldig spoke the words which Crawford might never have been able to say. "But not all of you are strong enough."

A tired expression washed over Crawford's face. He was thinking about one particular clairvoyant who had not been strong enough. He finally had his answers. _That's what he tried to do to Herr Komarov. He tried to get in too deep, and Herr Komarov wasn't strong enough._

Just to shield from the thoughts that only brought back the pain, Crawford rushed the business forward. "I thought Herr Dietrich wanted my visions. But they were just a bonus. I was the stabilizer for his monster machine." Slowly, Crawford turned to meet Schuldig's eyes. "And you were the engine."

They stared at each other in the eyes for a long minute. Scattered thoughts flickered through Crawford's mind. He badly needed Schuldig to acknowledge what he was saying, accept it, agree with it. His hands rested on Schuldig's ankle ― only, he couldn't forget, right now, that it wasn't really Schuldig's ankle. It belonged to someone else. Those blue eyes looked so convincing, yet he knew that underneath that mask, the real face was very different. Schuldig was trapped inside the wrong body, and they were trapped in this web of lies and deceit. But it was a comforting idea that at least they were trapped together.

Crawford's hand held on tighter to tell Schuldig what his lips wouldn't yield. All hard surfaces in Schuldig's eyes melted. Without a word, a tiny smile returned the answer from across the couch. It was a much desired answer that set Crawford's heart at ease in his chest.

_We're in this together._

They lingered in a comfortable silence. Perhaps Schuldig had his questions as well, but he didn't verbalise them. He didn't need to. Crawford would answer them when the time was right, and in the meantime, Schuldig could focus on the present. This was a familiar exercise. Crawford massaged Schuldig's ankle and Schuldig kept quiet while Crawford worked through the facts.

There were missing pieces. Gaps in the logic. Nothing Crawford had ever learned about mysticism suggested that transferring spiritual energy was possible in the amounts that this theory implied, but more importantly, if it was possible, surely, _surely_ the supreme leaders of the Order would have been doing it for centuries to create a master race of divine beings. Perhaps Dietrich's plans were linked to the Elders' plans in Japan, but those involved a vessel and a great ritual. How exactly were those things related to what Dietrich had been trying to do to them? There were simply too many questions, and the more Crawford considered the facts, more questions he came up with.

"We need more information," he finally decided. He mused on it a while, then eyed Schuldig thoughtfully. "Can't you dig out more?"

Schuldig gave him a blank look. "More?"

Crawford gave a meaningful nod in Schuldig's general direction, but it wasn't Schuldig he was trying to point at. "You're still linked. He's vulnerable now."

The blue eyes hardened into cold ice. "Yeah. He is. Forcing it might break him."

Crawford quirked an eyebrow. He had not expected the reluctant response, which made the word fall from his lips even more darkly and vengefully.

"And?"

Schuldig remained silent for a long minute, just staring at him. The ice-cold laser beams scanned Crawford's face. Finally, Schuldig jutted up his chin.

"And," he stressed the word, "we might be able to get away with one dead officer, but there is no way we can explain how the head supervisor got killed."

Those few little words, _one dead officer_, drove a stake through Crawford's chest. He looked away.

Schuldig pressed on with the facts. "I might be able to remote control him if there's enough left of his mind, but I would have to stay close to him to do that, and I am _not_ staying here in Rosenkreuz playing puppet master for the rest of my life."

Crawford couldn't completely hide the involuntary lurch in his stomach. His face went dead. Intentionally shot or not, the barb hit home. What Schuldig suggested was exactly what Dietrich had done ― played a puppet master for his partner in order to hide his crime.

Schuldig's eyes were relentless and intent on Crawford's face. "We'll need him. You know that."

It was exceptional that Schuldig was the one repeating the facts to him like he had forgotten reality, but for a long minute, Crawford was barely reacting to reality. The blue eyes became nothing but a vague impression somewhere in the periphery of his vision and he only remembered the dark shadow ― the shell that housed Schuldig's spirit right now. Crawford could easily forget everything except this room, this furniture, these smells and sounds. All this was a little too familiar. A part of him wanted to smash his fist in the middle of that hated face he knew was hovering very close. Another part insisted that Schuldig was right, they still needed Dietrich.

Crawford closed his eyes and let the air out of his lungs with a long exhale.

"He'll need us as much as we'll need him," he whispered, reminding himself as much as informing Schuldig. "He'll need our help covering up all this. And the Elders are expecting you and I to report to them. They need me to find somebody in Japan. And they need you to wake that somebody up. I'll tell you about it later. Right now..." Crawford's voice faded. He wiped his face with both hands. The combined weight of the emotional, physical and psychic strain was hitting him hard. He was so damned tired, it was getting harder to think. His every muscle was screaming for rest and his headache was getting worse. He took another deep breath. "Right now, we need to focus on figuring out the immediate future. Whatever Herr Dietrich was trying to do, we stopped it. He'll be angry. But... I can reason with him. I'll..."

"No."

Schuldig's serious voice interrupted Crawford. The precognitive blinked rapidly in surprise. Schuldig shook his head.

"You can't reason with him right now," Schuldig elaborated. His voice was steady and serious. "Didn't you feel it through the link?" Schuldig frowned. "Or maybe you don't understand because you're not a telepath."

Crawford's eyes snapped at him. His response was curt, uncharacteristically impatient. "Understand what?"

"The link, Crawford."

Crawford kept staring, demanding. He was refusing to understand what Schuldig was saying. Schuldig looked down, at his own hands in his lap. He joined his palms together and then twined his fingers, like he was about to pray.

"They were totally intertwined, Crawford," he said quietly. "When Herr Komarov's consciousness signed off, it almost pulled Herr Dietrich with it. I bet the only reason we don't have one dead body and one vegetable in our hands is that Herr Dietrich kept trying to stop Herr Komarov from slipping away."

Crawford froze. Schuldig didn't seem to notice the way his face fell flaccid.

"It worked like a counter-weight, or like he was using a pulley to drag himself out of a bog hole. It stabilised him. But..." Slowly, Schuldig looked up. "Crawford. Half of his mind went with Herr Komarov. Tore up a hole, right here." Schuldig tapped his temple. "Can you imagine what that's done to him? You can't reason with him. Not any time soon."

The following minutes were the longest of Crawford's entire life. It shouldn't have come to him as a shock, yet ― and maybe only because he had refused to think back on what had happened ― for the first time, it occurred to him that Schuldig had been linked to the two men when Komarov had died. And he couldn't help but wonder just exactly how deep. How much did the telepath know?

"You..." The false start had him moistening his lips. He looked away. He chose to keep his eyes elsewhere, anywhere but on Schuldig. His voice made it out just barely. "...were you there?"

Something on Schuldig's face softened. "When it happened?" he asked quietly. "You know I was."

Crawford might have given Schuldig the truth ― _I don't know that. I'm not always sure I was there myself._ But he couldn't, didn't want to discuss it, and he wanted to tell Schuldig as much, but his tongue was numb. He made no reply. His voice wouldn't obey him enough to ask all the questions he had, but then again, right now, he only had the one, and Schuldig could not answer it. How could he, when Crawford himself barely understood what he really meant to ask?

_Why?_

It was that dumb kind of a why, that kind of an illogical, irrational why that didn't lead anywhere. The kind of a why you asked yourself when you got caught in the rain without an umbrella. You sort of knew the answer, "because it had just happened", and you had no choice but to accept it because it was fate.

Fate. No choice.

His entire life, Crawford had played games of shadows somewhere in between chaos and order, fate and choice. With a gift like his, the concept of choice was a joke whispered in the darkness, at night before the dreams came, in that place in between, where you might believe, for one precious blink of an eye, that you could change your fate. He had wanted to believe that he could cheat the fate that had reached out to suck in his soul right through his mentor's dark, sad eyes all those years ago, when he had made his promise.

_I'll free you._

He knew now why Komarov had looked so sad. It had been death staring at Crawford in the eyes that day. Komarov had made his choice years ago. He had walked the zigzagging path to his fate with his eyes wide open. Crawford should accept it, yet, there was something else nagging at him. Something Crawford could barely suggest in the silence of his own mind. Schuldig's revelation of what Komarov's death had done to Dietrich's mind revived the vivid memories of Dietrich's shocking reaction to his partner's collapsing body. And that, in turn, reminded Crawford about Komarov's words.

_This monster is mine. I will live and die with it._

Crawford couldn't rid himself of the image of the shuddering mess on the laboratory floor. There had been something deeply personal between the two older men. So was it really pure psychic pain caused by a snapping bond that had broken Dietrich ― or was it something else?

_The love of a telepath can be a deadly pleasure._

It was too much to assume such depth of sentiment from Dietrich, yet perhaps even monsters had once been men, and men, of course, had once been boys, and perhaps... perhaps...

_Your telepath... you need to know... Adelbert was much like him once._

_...the love of a telepath..._

Crawford blinked. Just once. His heart kept beating faster in his chest. It was unnecessarily difficult to breathe. He closed his eyes. It might be easier if he didn't see Schuldig.

Then there would be no accidents.

Schuldig's feet slipped from Crawford's lap. Crawford's hands balled into fists to keep close the receding warmth of the space where Schuldig's ankle had been. The cushions rustled, and Crawford felt something heavy moving next to him. Something warm touched his shoulder. Crawford crushed the knuckles of his left hand in the cradle of his right hand. He felt a warm arm circling his shoulders, and he felt the warm body coming closer. Crawford's body was still stiff, but all that warmth was making a part of him melt.

Closer. Closer.

Then he heard a whisper in his ear.

"Brad..."

That name broke the spell. Or perhaps it was less the name and more the voice that spoke it, or maybe, maybe it really was just the name that had meant too much when spoken by a man who would never speak it again. A man who had told him...

_Adelbert was my monster. See to it that Schuldig won't become yours._

Perhaps it was simply the memory of his mentor's warning, and the knowledge that Komarov's monster had killed him. With a single swift motion, Crawford swept the arm off his shoulders and stood up. He walked a good five steps before he even knew where he was going, and once he knew where he wanted to go, he could not stop. His feet took him across the room directly to the red-haired limp body.

Behind him, Schuldig sat on the couch, staring at the empty spot where Crawford had been a moment ago, one arm framing the shape of Crawford's disappeared shoulders. It took a while before he lowered his hands.

Crawford kept staring at the sunset mane drawn against the white sheets on the operating table. He studied the immobile lips, the pale face, the gently rising and falling chest. He kept wanting to touch it, but the awareness that Schuldig was across the room in a different body kept his hands still. His face showed no emotion, because there was none inside him. Only a large vacant space that kept getting larger and larger, sucking in all his thoughts.

After several long minutes, soft footsteps approached him across the carpeted floor.

"Listen," said a voice that Crawford couldn't believe belonged to Schuldig. "We don't have much time."

Crawford's eyes were dead. A cruel, cold smile twisted his lips. "That's my line," he whispered.

The pause behind him was long and meant that Schuldig knew that something was wrong. Crawford crossed his arms over his chest and hugged his fists in his armpits, holding on to his physical armour just to keep everything inside him from trickling out from between the cracks.

"I can't stay in Herr Dietrich's body much longer." Schuldig's voice was quiet but calm. "But... I'm not sure what happens when I leave. It's kind of like falling, you know, only you never know if you're gonna be a rock or a leaf. Sometimes you go splat face first on the pavement, sometimes the wind catches you. And I'm not sure what kind of side-effects the drugs have."

Crawford frowned. He was beginning to *hear* something, something that Schuldig didn't want to put into words. He turned his head just a little, not enough to look over his shoulder, but enough to reveal a slice of his profile to the telepath.

"What are you trying to say?"

A deep breath. Then a long exhale. "The transfer might knock me out, Crawford. And when I wake up, I might be confused for a while."

Crawford closed his eyes. He didn't want to hear this but the ominous hunch was turning into certainty. There was a pause, and for just a second, Crawford dared to dream that he had mistaken the future, but...

"I might... I don't know. Forget stuff?" Schuldig sounded uncertain, then defensive. "Look, I'm not sure, okay? I've never been offline this long."

Crawford experienced a profound moment of mute, numb disappointment that finally melted into anger. He didn't want to take these chances again. He didn't want to let Schuldig go. Crawford wanted to turn around and scream, _No! No, don't you dare do this to me!_

...not again.

Yet, he didn't want Schuldig to stay in Dietrich's body forever, either. That was the only thought that helped him. He managed to dip his head for a nod.

"All right," he whispered. Somehow, it was easier once he had said it out loud. He straightened out his shoulders. "All right," he said again, and he almost believed that it was, indeed, all right.

Another pause. Crawford heard the shuffling from behind him, but Schuldig didn't come closer. No warm body pressed up against his own. No, it wouldn't. Not after Crawford had taken off from the couch like that. His face still hidden safely from Schuldig, he squeezed his eyes shut tighter against regret that might have liked to stay a little longer, maybe let that warm arm keep him close.

"If Herr Dietrich wakes up before I do... or if I... if I have problems..." His voice faded away. Yet another pause, yet another couple of quiet exhales. "Tell him we can save Herr Komarov. Tell him that we just need a new body, or a way to revive the old one. Tell him I can help him combine the body and the spirit. He'll believe you."

Crawford's jaws moved. _He'll believe you._ Something inside Crawford wanted to know, _But is it true?_ He didn't dare to ask the question, mostly because he didn't dare to believe he would like the answer.

Still. Schuldig must have heard him, and if Schuldig knew both the question and the answer, the question was unnecessary, because the telepath's continued silence must have meant that Crawford would not want to hear the answer.

Crawford closed his eyes. "All right." Maybe if he repeated it enough times, he would feel like it was the truth, like everything was all right.

Some more shuffling, and this time the steps did come closer. There was a touch. It was nothing but a hand on his elbow, fingers slipping into the creases of his shirt.

"When's the last time you slept? You need to rest, Crawford. Take a nap."

Crawford started to shake his head. A telepath would notice, but he wasn't really even feeling the exhaustion anymore. He was working on overdrive, his entire system fighting against pain and a million other things, fighting so hard that he was numb, driven only by one purpose. He needed to fix this situation. He couldn't rest until everything really was all right again.

The fingers dug into his skin and held tighter. "Crawford."

Crawford's eyes flashed open. He stared at the red-haired body on the operating table. "You need to tell me everything you know." As if he didn't even hear what Schuldig was saying. "You need to tell me about the woman you hypnotised. And anything else... I might need his security codes. Can you open his computer?"

The fingers on his elbow grabbed him and tossed him violently around, backed him up against the nearby wall, threw him against a bookshelf so hard that a couple of books fell on the floor. A pair of fierce blue icicles stabbed him, a hard fist smacked him on the chest, right where it would hurt the most because of the wound. Crawford's lips yielded only a hiss of pain. Mercilessly, Schuldig pinned him against the bookshelf, and his current body was more than strong enough to hold an injured, exhausted Crawford.

"You listen to me!" Schuldig's face was wrought with anger. "After I leave this body, there's no knowing how long it'll take until I'm conscious and operational again. You might be alone with him for hours, more, the fuck do I know. I need you to be awake, do you get that?" He grabbed Crawford's shoulder and shoved him against the bookshelf again. A couple of more books fell. Schuldig jutted up his chin and pushed his face almost nose to nose with Crawford's. "You need to fucking rest, Crawford, right now while I can keep watch, because later, you'll be on your own and I need to count on you, and I can't do that if you're sleeping standing up!"

Crawford seized Schuldig's wrists. He was breathing hard. His eyes were wild and angry, and for a second it looked like he might start a fight. But his chest kept rising and falling, the pain kept throbbing in his head, and Schuldig's unrelenting blue kept being so close, and something inside kept crumbling. Crawford took a few more deep breaths, but there wasn't enough air to satisfy him, there just wasn't. Instead of prying Schuldig's hands off him, he released the telepath's wrists and searched along the arms. He tried to decide where to hold on best in order to most efficiently push the telepath away, but as soon as he had found the shoulders, his palms cupped the round shapes and his fingers crawled to hold on tighter, tighter.

He didn't want to let go. Ever.

Schuldig's eyes narrowed to thin blue slits. His hand moved from Crawford's shoulder to his neck. He grabbed a handful of short black hair in his fist. He leaned closer, closer, his eyes darting between Crawford's eyes and his mouth. The expression in the illusionary blue eyes softened as they finally fell on target.

On Crawford's parted lips.

Crawford kept gasping, because there just wasn't enough air, not enough, or perhaps it wasn't air he wanted, perhaps he wanted this warmth hovering so close ― he leaned forward just slightly. It was all the cue Schuldig needed. The telepath seized Crawford's mouth with a harsh kiss. Crawford's entire body convulsed. He pulled Schuldig closer. His hands left Schuldig's shoulders only to tangle with the hair, closing big chunks of it in his fists. He closed his eyes and hungrily, he let himself forget once again that this wasn't really Schuldig's body.

While Crawford's attention was thus completely and fully focused on the kiss, the telepath's free hand slipped in his pocket. He pulled out a small hypo needle. His mouth still greedily stealing a second after second of sweet abandon from Crawford's lips, he flicked the hypo in his fingers to hide it into the cup of his palm. The strong body pressed up against Crawford tighter. The hand holding the hypo climbed higher and higher.

The hypo paused near the shoulder. A slight frown disturbed the telepath's face. The hand holding the hypo trembled. For one second, two, three ― then the telepath squeezed his eyes shut tighter.

With a single quick stab, he plunged the needle into Crawford's neck.

Crawford's eyes flew open. He coughed out of the kiss. He tried to grope his neck and snatched the telepath's wrists. The telepath didn't step away. He pinned Crawford's body up against the bookcase with the sheer weight of his body.

"Ssh," he whispered, his eyes darting all over Crawford's face, "ssh, it's just a trank, Crawford. You'll be okay. Ssh."

Crawford shook his head. He kept struggling. The telepath kept talking in hasty whispers.

"Just a trank. To help you sleep. Okay? Crawford? Crawford, you hear me? You're okay."

An utterly wounded, betrayed, shocked expression on his face, Crawford stared at the blue eyes. He didn't say a word. His fingers dug deep into Schuldig's wrists, he kept trying to fight. His body kept twitching. He coughed again, once, twice. He never looked away from the eyes that were quickly fading from blue to grey. The telepath met his accusing gaze through the entire spastic sequence that it took for Crawford's eyelids to finally fall and his body to sag in Schuldig's arms.

The telepath closed his eyes. His knotted, sweaty hair fell around his face like squirming wet black serpents as he dipped his head and pressed his cheek against Crawford's head as it dropped on his shoulder. He kept the precognitive on his feet, his arms looped from under Crawford's armpits and draped around Crawford's body. He dropped the hypo and flattened his palms against Crawford's body. His fingers fanned out, then crawled to collect a better grip of the white shirt.

Somewhere inside, a jumble of telepathic whispers rustled like two leaves shuddering at the end of the same branch. It was something less than a conversation, and only barely more than isolated pieces of broken thoughts tangling into one another.

_»__If the dose was wrong, he could die.__»_

_»__It was meant for him. I know the exact dose.__»_

_»__He'll be fine.__»_

_»__It was the only way to make him rest.__»_

The telepath buried his nose in Crawford's short black hair. For several long, deep, shuddering breaths, he just stood there, supporting the limp Crawford ― the man who never leaned on another unless he had no other choice. He stood until the heavy body started to slip from his grip. With a tiny, sniffling sound that he didn't really recognise for his own, he fixed the position of the body in his arms.

"Come on," he murmured. "Let's get you more comfortable."

The dark shadow started to drag the precognitive across the floor towards the bedroom. The steady bleeping of the machine was, once again, the only sound in the room.


	20. Come Back

**- MINDS -**

**Chapter Fifteen  
:: come back ::**

It wasn't with a start but with a slow slide that Crawford travelled from the sleeping state back closer to wakefulness. He floated in a haze where only indistinct images and half-heard voices swelled and shifted. He could see Komarov's face, with a blissful smile on his face, tears in his eyes. He could see a flash of orange and a pool of red. He could see a shaking, shivering ten-year-old boy. He heard moaning.

Slowly, he became aware of the fact that his own lips were parted and his throat was vibrating with sound. He was the one moaning. At last, Crawford gasped into consciousness. He shot up to a sitting position, clawing at his chest with one trembling hand. The pain that followed had him gasping again. He blinked rapidly. The first thing in the reality that hit him was that he was touching a bandage strapped around his chest.

The next thing was the realisation that he was sitting on something soft, with something warm tangled around his feet. He kicked at it before he realised that it was just the sheet. Gasping, he squeezed his hand into a fist and held it to his heart. He forced his body to sit still. Hazily, he worked through the fact that he was sitting in a bed. A warm, comfortable bed. Crawford looked around slowly. The room was dark, but the shapes and the shadows he saw spreading around him were all too familiar. He had seen them many times.

This was Dietrich's bedroom. Decorated with myriad expensive details, filled with paintings and shelves full of books and useless silent ornaments.

Crawford glanced down at his body. He was wearing a shirt that was missing a few buttons from where he had apparently torn it open in his sleep. The bandage was clearly visible. Crawford thought he could detect a few dark spots. He should probably get it changed. But the thought of changing his bandages or taking care of his body were not the first thing on his mind. He looked up again and checked the room for the second time.

"Schuldig?"

There was no answer. The room was quiet and most decidedly empty. Crawford took a deep breath, then let it out again. He kept breathing deep for a full minute to give his body a few moments to adjust and to clear his head. In a flash, everything that had happened came back to him. He shuddered. Like a waking nightmare. The memories gave him chills — and ended with a single question.

Where was Schuldig? And more importantly, had it really been Schuldig who had used a tranquilliser on Crawford — or Dietrich?

Crawford slipped out of the bed. He took another look down at his body. He was still wearing his trousers. Apparently, he had been placed on the bed to sleep exactly in the condition he had been when he had last been awake, except for his glasses. He pursed his lips. If it was Dietrich who had touched him last, and not Schuldig, at least the man had passed on the opportunity to relieve Crawford of his clothes. He supposed that was a positive sign.

Crawford didn't bother to pick up his glasses before heading out of the luxurious bedroom. The door was slightly ajar and light was streaming in from the sitting room located on the other side. He paused for a moment with his hand on the handle of the door. He could see no movement, no shadows changing shape. He could hear nothing but a steady bleeping sound. His fingers clutched the handle of the door tighter. That sounded like the machine that measured Schuldig's vital signs, and if the redhead's body had not been moved from the last time Crawford had seen it, it should be on the other side.

He closed his eyes and turned his head in the direction where the portable operating table should have been, if it was in the room. He focused to drive back all thoughts of his body, to give his gift full precedence. It didn't always work through walls, but after what Komarov had told him about his powers ascending to a new level, he felt more confident that it was possible to push past the physical restraints. After all, if he didn't need his eyes to see, perhaps he could push past physical barriers.

After his nap, Crawford felt more refreshed, rested and calm. He focused his mind easily and soon slipped into the calm that could give him the future, or, in this particular case, the present. The image formed before him as though his eyes would have been wide open and staring right through the wall. The room on the other side was exactly as he had last seen it, dimly lit and with a portable operating table and the monitor standing under a painting depicting a ship and a dark stormy sea. The red-haired pale-skinned body of a young man was lying on top of it.

Crawford took exceptional notice of the scar on his upper body that belied the exact place where the bullet had emerged out of that perfect, smooth flesh and broken the muscles. He swallowed and focused his attention back on the rest of the room. Unless his talent was misbehaving on him, there was no one else on the other side of the door.

Crawford opened his eyes, yanked the door open and stepped into the doorway. "Schuldig?"

There was no answer.

Fearing for a moment that the strange whatever-it-was that had replaced his normal eyesight was playing tricks on him and hiding Dietrich from his sight, Crawford tried another name, "Herr Dietrich?"

Only silence responded. Crawford walked swiftly over to Schuldig's body. He tested the telepath's pulse and swept one hand over the redhead's forehead. Schuldig's heartbeat was normal, his skin was warm. Normal temperature, dry skin. Crawford's thumb caressed Schuldig's brow. His expression softened.

"Schuldig?" he asked again.

There was no reply. Crawford closed his eyes and let out a quiet breath. His hand wandered in Schuldig's red hair. He lingered only for a heartbeat before turning around. He glanced at the clock — and jumped a little. It was hours since he had talked with Schuldig!

What had happened in the meantime?

Crawford proceeded to hurriedly explore the head supervisor's rooms. He navigated the basic layout of the head supervisor's rooms easily due to his numerous visits during his time at Rosenkreuz. He checked first the areas he had been permitted to visit; the small guest bedroom, the private kitchen, the mini library and the luxurious bathroom.

All empty.

As he returned from the bathroom, he caught something. It was like a flickering shadow. He looked up with a frown. He couldn't quite catch it again. He stopped to stand in the middle of the sitting room. The disturbing half-formed image had flitted by somewhere near a door he had never walked through before. Had the door opened? Had he seen a cat, perhaps? But Crawford had never seen a pet in Dietrich's quarters, and nothing was moving anymore. Had his talent shown him something, then?

The curious and cautious Crawford approached the door slowly. The only sound in the room was the steady bleeping of the machine that kept measuring the vital signs of the red-haired telepath's unmoving body. Crawford moved noiselessly over to the door and tried the handle. It wasn't locked. He squeezed the handle in his fingers. Again, he tried to focus and concentrate on seeing through solid matter into the room on the other side of the door.

This time it didn't work so well. He caught only the vague impression of a shape, and soon it flickered away. Obviously, he would still have a great deal to learn about how this newly discovered aspect of his talent worked. Crawford took a deep breath. Well. It was hopefully nothing but Schuldig in Dietrich's body. In case it was something else... Crawford considered calling out first, but then decided against it. He ran through the different scenarios quickly. If Dietrich had company, he could explain his scandalous appearance easily by implying that he was Dietrich's lover. It would be a knock on his pride in case it was someone who had never heard the rumours, but under the current circumstances, it was worth the risk. After all, there was the possibility that Dietrich was back in his body, and in that case, Crawford wanted to surprise the man.

Crawford held his torn shirt in a fist against his chest to keep it from showing the bandage from underneath. His knuckles white, his jaws set, his every muscle tense, he opened the door. He froze in the doorway.

The wood-panelled room on the other side was very similar to the head supervisor's office. The desk was a smaller carbon copy of the ebony monster that dominated Dietrich's office, and while the room was not quite as ostentatious and there were less paintings and more bookshelves, the overall style matched perfectly. Crawford could only assume it was some kind of a private study. The room was lit by nothing but the computer screen protruding from the ebony surface of the desk. The only living thing in the room was the man sitting behind the desk, his face buried in his hands. The black-and-grey coils of hair looked tangled and sweaty. The white shirt was hanging loose, all buttons undone, the wet patches sticking to his skin here and there.

Dietrich didn't stir. The man looked like a statue. Crawford took a quick look at the items on the desk surface. Pencils and a couple of paperweights — and a gun. It was lying there in front of the man, just under the glowing screen. Crawford's jaws moved. He wanted to call for Schuldig, but... what if this wasn't Schuldig?

Crawford's eyes lingered on the gun. What Schuldig had said haunted him.

_Half of his mind went with Herr Komarov. _

_Can you imagine what that's done to him?_

While his talent was mute on the subject, Crawford could only fear the worst.

Silently, Crawford stepped into the room. He approached the desk with slow, cautious steps, keeping his eye on the dark-haired man's unmoving figure. Dietrich kept sitting motionless, as though he didn't even notice Crawford's presence. Light flooded in through the door behind Crawford, dancing around his outline like a halo and throwing his shadow across the floor. Only when the shadow crept up Dietrich's desk and disturbed the patterns of light near the computer screen did Dietrich shift slightly, but not to look at Crawford. The telepath's fingers crawled in his hair, deeper and deeper, until he was cradling his head under his arms.

"Take it away," whispered a broken voice.

Crawford stared. The quiver in Dietrich's voice made it completely unrecognisable. Which telepath was speaking?

"Take it away, Crawford." The request came out stronger, and this name was ever used by only one of the telepaths.

Crawford hurried through the last few steps to the desk. "Schuldig." Crawford seized the telepath's shoulder. "What is it?"

The telepath reacted with a hiss and a violent lunge to the opposite direction — it was an obvious attempt to escape. He tried to slap Crawford's hand away. "Away from me!" A pair of bloodshot grey eyes shot up from under black brows. Dietrich's face was a mask of rage.

Crawford clung on. His face hardened. He groped for a hold of Dietrich's shirt with the other hand as well, but the telepath grabbed his wrist and tried to wrestle him off. Crawford reacted half on instinct. He yanked the telepath forward by the shoulder and sank his knee into Dietrich's side. Howling with rage, the telepath retaliated with a kick that swept Crawford's feet off from under him. With a furious growl, Crawford pulled Dietrich with him as he tumbled down on the floor.

A violent tussle followed. Accompanied by growling and the sound of their heavy bodies hitting the furniture and the clatter of the items on the desk, they wrestled one another in blind rage until Crawford got the telepath pinned on his back, one hand clamped around his throat. He directed a sharp punch into Dietrich's stomach, and then another, and another, until he could no longer stop. The hateful face of the dark-haired telepath was twisted in rage and pain and Crawford wanted to make it twist more.

Something simply snapped.

"You," Crawford panted, "fucking," he kept punching, "asshole!"

Dietrich coughed. His body convulsed. Crawford kept sinking his fist into that hard, trembling flesh again and again. He didn't even notice when the telepath stopped struggling. He just kept watching those lips parting with sharp gasps and those eyes bulging with pain, and he was thinking nothing but the power that coursed through his limbs, driving through a punch after punch.

Until...

_»__Crawford! Stop it!__»_ The telepathic voice slapped him across the back of his head. _»__Fuck! Stop it! This is what he wants! Stop!__»_

Crawford buried his fist into Dietrich's stomach but he didn't pull it back for another punch. He blinked rapidly. The telepathic blow kicked his brain out of the blind rage mode. He realised that the body under him wasn't moving at all, even though the telepath had both his hands free. Dietrich's face was warped by pain, showing a row of white teeth, but there was something in the curve of his grimace that suggested the tiniest smile, which quickly died when Crawford stopped to stare.

The grey eyes flashed, Dietrich's nostrils flared, and he grabbed Crawford's arm, but the struggle that followed was but a faint echo of the power with which the telepath had fought him off in the laboratories. Crawford narrowed his eyes, released the telepath's throat and straightened his back to sit on his knees, towering above Dietrich's body.

"What the hell are you playing at?" Crawford demanded. Adrenaline was still pumping through his system, his heart was racing in his chest, he started to question everything, including Schuldig's voice in his head.

He received two answers simultaneously, and he couldn't immediately tell which one had been spoken and which one was only in his head.

"I'll kill you!" Dietrich's voice.

"He's slipping!" Schuldig's voice.

Crawford didn't have time to react when Dietrich suddenly hurled him off. With a surprised grunt, Crawford hit the nearby bookshelf. Books tumbled down. Dietrich scrambled up on his feet and lunged for the gun on the desk, but as though his own feet were fighting him, he tripped on the chair and stumbled. With an angry growl, he kept reaching for the desk surface, but his body convulsed violently and he seemed to throw himself on the floor dramatically.

Crawford's eyes widened. The telepath's macabre battle with his own body must have meant that the two telepaths were vying for the control of Dietrich's body! Crawford got quickly on his feet. Having seen Dietrich going for the gun, he now understood what Schuldig had tried to tell him. The message must have been garbled by Dietrich's influence.

_Take away the gun._

While the dark-haired man writhed on the floor, Crawford leapt to the desk. While grabbing the gun, he took a quick look at the computer screen. He would have expected to see a Rosenkreuz database entry or some other useful files that Schuldig might have been going through while waiting for Crawford to wake up, but instead, he saw a short black text flickering in the middle of a blank white message window. Crawford couldn't have avoided reading it. He absorbed the text with a single glance.

_Only fools believe in forever, moy bies._

Crawford's breath was locked in his chest. His fingers clutched the gun convulsively. There was no signature, but the log at the top of the message window revealed that this message had arrived into Dietrich's personal inbox around the events in the laboratories.

This was Komarov's last message to his partner.

Crawford wasn't yet done processing the message or its implications when a familiar telepathic whisper slipped into his consciousness.

_»__Crawford... I can't... hold him... any longer...__»_

Crawford whirled on his heels, only to see Dietrich suddenly falling on his stomach with a surprised gasp.

"Schuldig?" Crawford asked, cold chills running up and down his spine.

There was no answer. For a few seconds, Dietrich lay on his stomach absolutely still, then the man shifted his weight, supported his elbow to the floor and turned his head to peer at Crawford from over his shoulder. A pair of piercing grey gleamed from under angry black brows. For the first time since the events in the laboratories, Dietrich's expression was frighteningly alert.

"Well, the choice is in your hands now," drifted Dietrich's dark voice. "Shall you pull the trigger, Oracle?"

Crawford held the gun tighter. But he didn't raise it, he didn't take aim.

A choppy bark mocked his silence. Dietrich rolled over, sat up and pounced up on his feet, agile like a feline.

"What's wrong, Oracle?" Dietrich taunted him. "Forgetting your vengeance so soon? Isn't this what you've always wanted?" He spread his arms wide, a chilling leer plastered to his face. "Look..." he whispered. "I'm all yours."

Wordlessly, Crawford shook his head.

The telepath's leer turned into a grimace. "Tsk, Oracle!" he spat. "If you won't do it, I'll take the choice from you." He licked his lips, his eyes glistening with mad, wild hunger. "Rest assured," he said softly, "only one of us will leave this room alive."

Crawford frowned. He could easily understand Dietrich making death threats, but the way the man had let Crawford beat him a moment ago didn't fit the same M.O.

Dietrich's eyes grew dark. He shook his head slowly, his eyes never leaving Crawford's face. "I won't suffer your existence any longer, Oracle," he growled. "One of us is going to pay for his crimes tonight. If you won't take your vengeance, I will have mine."

Crawford's face went dark. "Your vengeance?" he hissed. Instinct got him to flick the gun up and aim it directly at Dietrich's head. "How _dare_ you."

"It was your hand that killed him," Dietrich spat. "Your hand!"

Rage bubbled up from somewhere so deep that Crawford simply could not hold it inside him. The only reason he didn't pull the trigger was that the rest of his body lunged forward, his fingers looking for a hold of Dietrich's throat. Dietrich made no effort to evade him. Both their eyes were burning an unholy furious fire as Crawford shoved Dietrich against the bookcase. He buried the muzzle of the gun into Dietrich's forehead in between the eyes.

"You..!" Dietrich panted. His upper lip curled into a disgusted sneer. "You! You did this!" His eyes were shining like crystals. He grabbed Crawford's wrist but made no effort to grab the gun. He wasn't seriously wrestling to remove the hand on his throat.

It was that fact, as well as the glimmer in Dietrich's eyes that stopped Crawford. He remembered what Schuldig had said when the telepath had tried to make Crawford stop hitting Dietrich. _This is what he wants!_

Crawford's eyes widened. "You want me to pull the trigger," he whispered incredulously.

Dietrich froze. His grimace turned into something different, his sneer faltered. He was suddenly blinking furiously. A scowl crumpled his brows.

"Don't insult me." Dietrich's voice was nothing but a choked whisper. "I told you. Either you'll take your vengeance or I'll take mine."

Crawford shook his head. "But you're not even trying," he whispered.

Dietrich pursed his lips to a tight line. He seized Crawford's hand tighter, but though he squeezed Crawford's wrist with his knuckles white, nothing suggested that he was trying to force Crawford to let go. Crawford released his hold of Dietrich's throat. His hand travelled a couple of inches down along Dietrich's chest. At the same time, he lowered the gun, let it fall lower and lower until it was pointing at the floor.

The scowling Dietrich kept clinging to Crawford's wrist with desperate fingers. It hurt like iron claws digging into his flesh, but Crawford refused to move his palm from where it was plastered to Dietrich's chest. He could feel the telepath's heartbeat. Dietrich's heart was racing. The telepath's skin was still unnaturally warm, like he had fever. Dietrich was on overdrive in every sense of the word. Crawford's anger faded from his face. This was not the controlled Herr Adelbert Dietrich that Crawford knew. He suspected that the telepath wasn't even completely conscious of what he was saying or doing.

It was understanding rather than pity that softened Crawford's voice. "This is useless, Herr Dietrich," he murmured. "We need each other. I need you for my future. And you..." He moistened his lips. With all his being, he willed faith into his words. "You need me to save Herr Komarov."

At these words, Dietrich's entire body jerked as though he had been hit. The two pieces of ice suddenly turned into pools of liquid crystal. The tears spilled on his cheeks. For a few extended seconds, Dietrich struggled against whatever chaos that moved his insides, but then, like a marionette with its strings cut, his entire body suddenly deflated. His iron grip of Crawford's wrist slipped. He slumped against the bookcase, his chest expanding to take a single shuddering breath. No exhale followed.

Crawford's eyes widened slightly. He was thoroughly unprepared for the transformation of the dark, hateful monster into this vulnerable creature. Not a sound escaped Dietrich's lips, but his voice did not need to deliver that which was plain on his face. Crawford had seen mourning men before. He had never seen anything like this. Most men wore grief like a missing space somewhere in the broken lines of their faces. But this was different. Dietrich not so much carried an empty place as he had fallen right through it. His facial muscles did not react to the tears that streamed down his cheeks. His eyes were suddenly dead, his lips hung flaccid, his breathing became so shallow it was no longer detectable. Slowly, Dietrich slid down to sit on the floor, his back against the bookcase.

Crawford fell on one knee and grasped a tighter hold of Dietrich's shirt, like it would help him hang on to his hatred for the man despite the unexpected regret written all over the telepath's face.

"I don't need you, Oracle," Dietrich muttered. "He's... gone." His voice cracked and fell away like a crystal cup splintering on the floor. His fingers crawled into fists.

"No," Crawford said, struggling to keep his voice level and firm. "Schuldig and I can help you bring him back."

Dietrich shook his head. "No conviction in you, Oracle..." he whispered. "You would tell me whatever I needed to hear."

"And if I'm telling you the truth?" Crawford demanded. "Isn't it better to take the chance?"

Dietrich's lips twitched to a snarl that soon eased into an undecipherable grimace. He screwed his eyes shut. "I can't... hear... him, Oracle." The words came out choppy and laboured and ended with a frustrated puff that quickly degenerated into what Crawford could only call a choked whimper. "He's gone," Dietrich sobbed. "I can't hear him."

Crawford opened his mouth, but the tears streaming down Dietrich's cheeks stopped all words in his throat. He had seen hints and references to the depth of the relationship between Dietrich and Komarov, he had had reasons to suspect that their bond may have been generated at least in part by sentiment, but he had never been able to believe that Dietrich might have felt genuine affection for his partner. After all, if Dietrich cared, he should have done everything in his power to give Komarov his freedom. Instead, the man had used Komarov like a commodity that belonged to him by right.

But was this truly the reaction of a man who had lost his favourite plaything?

"He... did everything... for you, Oracle." Dietrich's voice was thin, barely audible. "He betrayed me... for you. Always for you." Dietrich dragged in a shaking breath. "Always... for... you..." He choked on his words.

So did Crawford. He didn't want to hear this. He didn't want to feel this weight in his chest. A part of him wanted to sink his fist into Dietrich's face. He squeezed the gun in one trembling hand and wondered if a bullet in Dietrich's brain would erase the pain for the both of them.

Suddenly, Dietrich drew a sharp breath. "Yesss!" he hissed. One hand snaked out and seized the gun. "Yes, Oracle!" His eyes flashed open. They were dark and fierce, burning with hell's own fire. "That's right! Hate me, like I hate you!" His fingers closed like hot iron clasps around the grip of the gun and Crawford's hand. "Make your choice! Which one of us dies for him? You or I?" He bared his teeth, snarling like a wild animal. "By God I swear I'll make the choice if you will not!"

Crawford's chest swelled with a scream he struggled to suppress. He wanted to yell at the man to shut up. Shut up forever. He wanted to pull the trigger and watch blood exploding at the back of Dietrich's head. He wanted to watch that hateful face fall with a bullet hole in between his eyes. He wanted to scream and shoot the man silent. He wanted it so much that tears of rage welled in his eyes.

But it was the reflection of his own fury in Dietrich's eyes that kept him from realising those mad desires. Death was written into the liquid grey eyes. Right now it didn't matter to Dietrich whose death it was. Crawford kept hearing Schuldig's voice. _This is what he wants!_ Whether or not Dietrich really wanted to be punished for his sins was irrelevant; right now, the man wanted violence to quench the pain, and whatever it was that Dietrich most desired was what Crawford wanted to deny from him.

With a single violent jerk, Crawford tore his hand free from Dietrich's grip. He was back on his feet the next second, stumbling back to put distance between them.

"You swear by a God that isn't real." Crawford's voice was level and cold. He brandished the weapon in his hand. "I swear by this very real gun, I'm going to kick your teeth in if you give me another word of this bullshit. Neither of us is going to die today."

Dietrich glowered at him from under his brows. He bared his teeth with an enraged snarl. "You...!"

"Me?" Crawford's voice lashed like a whip. "No. None of this has ever been about me." His eyes flashed with anger. "Make no mistake, you asshole, Herr Komarov did all this for _you_. If he wanted to protect me, he should have helped me to kill you years ago. But no!" Crawford upper lip curled in anger. "He fucking died for you!"

Dietrich's mouth snapped shut. His eyes were suddenly slightly wider.

Crawford was warming up to his cause. "That's right," he hissed. "Do you fucking get it finally? None of this would have been necessary had you an ounce of decency and sense in you! He knew that his death was the only way to stop you." Crawford took a deep, trembling breath. His voice lowered to a husky whisper. "So he told me to kill him."

Dietrich's eyes fell from Crawford and swept across the floor. He turned his head so that the shadows swallowed his face. Crawford saw a few glistening tears falling through the darkness.

"Consider this," Crawford went on mercilessly. "He gave up his life to teach you a goddamned lesson. If you have any respect for his memory, you're going to learn it."

Crawford paused to let the words sink in. Dietrich's mouth was nothing but a tiny tense scrape on his face. Crawford wiped his mouth with one shaking hand. Silence dragged on, but from the way time tugged at his talent, he knew he was pulling the right ropes.

"I'm never going to trust you again," he said. "Neither is Schuldig. But we still need you, and you still need us. Together, we can still stop the Elders. We can have our freedom. And maybe, we can find a way to bring Herr Komarov back." Crawford's voice softened. "And even if we can't... don't you think you owe it to him to at least try?"

Dietrich hung his head. Dark grey-black hair fell like a veil to hide his face deeper into the shadows. The way the light caught the bright white strands near Dietrich's ears made Crawford's vision grow hazy and misty. He saw the shadows stretching on farther and farther into the future. Farther and farther. It felt like too much to expect this foul creature to have enough of a soul to feel gratitude let alone guilt, yet there it was, hanging in the silence and in the tomorrows that welled in Crawford's eyes — Dietrich's surrender. It was not much more than quiet words and a bowed head, but it was enough.

Crawford adjusted the position of his shoulders. His chest swelled with a deep inhale. His every muscle eased into a relaxed, confident stance. With his shirt hanging halfway off one shoulder, his hair tussled, without his glasses, he stood like the angel of destiny towering over Dietrich's defeated figure.

"I'm not going to kill you," Crawford declared. "You're certainly not going to kill me. So you can either call your henchmen here to dispose of me and end it for all of us, or you can stop this nonsense and take my direction. If the latter, get on your feet and come with me. I need to check on Schuldig."

With that, Crawford tugged the shirt back on his shoulders, turned on his heels and walked across the room to the door. He stuck the gun under his belt. He wasn't about to give it back to Dietrich any time soon.

Behind him, a pair of grey specks watched him go from behind a dark veil. Dietrich didn't move except to pull his knee up closer to his chest and drape one arm over it. He returned his eyes to the floor when Crawford's figure disappeared through the door. He stared right through the wet splashes that stained the expensive red carpet under him.

Crawford headed back to the red-haired telepath. Schuldig was still lying motionless and death-like. Crawford passed by the machine and checked the readings. The computer had not apparently registered a single spike at what Crawford surmised was around the time Schuldig had been thrown out of Dietrich's body. Everything was showing normal. Crawford left the machine and returned to Schuldig's bedside. He touched Schuldig's forehead.

"Schuldig?" Crawford searched the telepath's face. Nothing implied that Schuldig might have heard him. Crawford's fingers slipped into the red hair. Ugly thoughts wormed their way into his brain. What if something had gone wrong? What if Schuldig would never wake again? Crawford had to blink past the pressure that threatened to build behind his eye sockets. He chastised himself for the unnecessary doubt. He had seen himself together with Schuldig in Japan. The telepath would wake. Everything would be as it had been before. Crawford kept reminding himself of that fact while his fingers gently caressed Schuldig's head.

"The drugs have worn off by now," said a voice from behind him. "He's slipped into a telepathic trance."

Crawford's hand froze. He turned his head a bit and gave a sidelong look from over his shoulder at the figure standing a couple of paces behind him. Dietrich had not fixed his outfit but he had swept his hair off his face and tucked the loose strands behind his ears. He was standing with his legs slightly apart, his shoulders low, his hands hanging by his sides. In one hand, he was carrying what looked like a hypodermic injection. Crawford's eyes fell and clung to it.

"We use this to snap fledglings out of the trance when they get stuck." Dietrich showed the hypo to Crawford. "It should wake him, if his consciousness hasn't slipped away again."

Crawford might have asked why the head supervisor kept a hypo of that particular drug so handily available in his quarters, but... right now, he was more interested in the implications of Dietrich's words. His gaze climbed up to meet Dietrich's eyes.

"If." It was all Crawford needed to say. His eyes bored into Dietrich's skull, demanding answers.

Dietrich's eyes fell from Crawford's face to Schuldig's unmoving body. "I can't tell," he confessed. "I can still sense him. I've been able to link with him ever since they brought him to me, but... it's just residue. I can get into his memories. But I can't find any conscious thoughts."

Crawford narrowed his eyes. He looked at Schuldig again. To trust Dietrich after everything the man had done would have been madness. Yet... there was very little reason for Dietrich to lie to him now, if he was about to accept Crawford's offer.

And Oracle knew that he was.

"So." Crawford's eyes lingered on Schuldig. "You've decided." He didn't really need to ask. He had foreseen it.

A silence dragged on between them. Stubbornly, Crawford waited. He didn't require Dietrich to meet his eyes while saying it, but he wanted to hear it. He wanted those lips to yield for once in their life. After a lengthy pause, he finally heard something that sounded like a suppressed sigh.

"Yes, Oracle," came Dietrich's quiet voice. "You have won." The telepath flitted noiselessly closer. He held out the hypo on his open palm as though to offer it to Crawford. His face was ridden with darkness. "If he won't wake to this, I'll need to link with him again."

Crawford shot a warning glare at Dietrich. The telepath met his eyes without flinching or giving any other indication that he might have been lying. That had never meant anything, but as Crawford met the slightly out-of-focus grey eyes, he wondered if this time, perhaps Dietrich had been finally pushed past the limit where he was able to lie. Once again, Crawford reminded himself of the future. He nodded and accepted the hypo from Dietrich's hand.

"All right." Crawford's hand slid on Schuldig's arm, looking for the best place.

While Crawford stuck the needle into Schuldig, Dietrich circled the operating table. He passed from behind the machine measuring Schuldig's vital signs. Dietrich's eyes remained fixed on Schuldig's face, but when the redhead's body jerked and there was a promising double-beep, Dietrich's eyes dropped to the monitor.

"A peak in his heart rate," he reported to Crawford. "That's normal. If the drug worked, he should come to momentarily."

Crawford might have made a few comments to Dietrich about all the fuss the man had made of the procedure back at the laboratories, but his attention was locked on Schuldig. He kept wanting to see movement, and for a moment, he thought that he did. Wasn't that the beginning of a smile? Didn't the eyelids flutter ever so briefly? He grabbed Schuldig's wrist.

"Schuldig?" he asked, his every living cell straining to hear a response.

But only a disappointing silence followed. Crawford chewed his back teeth together. Seconds stretched on, the bleeping returned to normal and the redhead's body remained perfectly, infuriatingly motionless.

Dietrich's shadow appeared over Schuldig. He was standing on the other side of the operating table. He placed his hand on Schuldig's forehead.

"It's not happening, Oracle," he whispered. "I need to fetch him."

Crawford's every muscle tensed against the very idea. His gaze shot up to Dietrich's strained face. The man was looking at Schuldig, his fingertips caressing Schuldig's brow. The grey eyes were bloodshot and seemed deeper set in their sockets than they should be. There were lines on Dietrich's face that Crawford had never seen before. The man looked at least a decade older than Crawford had ever believed him to be.

Dietrich raised his eyes slowly to meet Crawford's. "Will you let me do it?"

It sounded honest. Crawford pursed his lips to a tense line. He wanted to tell Dietrich no. But what was the alternative? Waiting? Schuldig had told him that he didn't know what would happen.

"All right." Crawford's eyes were pools of hard, unforgiving amber. "But remember that I will rip your heart out through your ass if you try anything... unscheduled."

Dietrich's lips twitched towards a faint smile. "Language, Oracle," he chided softly. But without further comments, he turned his attention on Schuldig. "Come, my pet," he whispered. "Your precognitive wants you." His voice broke towards the end of the sentence. He closed his eyes.

Wordless with an emotion that could only be called dumbfounded awe, Crawford watched. He had never heard Dietrich sound so affectionate. The master telepath rested his cheek against Schuldig's chest near the heart, where the electrodes were. The man's hand stayed on Schuldig's forehead. And then he went very still.

Crawford could only wait, torn by conflicting feelings of concern and a confusing ocean of other things. He didn't quite know what to make of Dietrich's behaviour. _Your precognitive wants you_ had sounded like the echo of, _my precognitive has left me_ and that should have been bitterness, yet it sounded like regret. Crawford felt uncomfortable and embarrassed but he wasn't sure why. Whatever had existed between Dietrich and Komarov was none of his business except where he could take advantage of Dietrich's residue feelings.

But something of what Dietrich had said before lingered. _He betrayed me... for you. Always for you._ Crawford gulped down the lump in his throat.

_Hate me, like I hate you!_

Jealousy had rung loud in that command, that declaration, that accusation. Crawford was left feeling ill. What if he was wrong? What if Komarov had really done all this for him? All because Komarov preferred his favourite student over his lover? And what had been Komarov's true feelings for Crawford? Was he a surrogate son or the target of unrequited love?

And whatever the case, might Komarov's affection for him mean that Crawford really was responsible for his mentor's death? The motivations of precognitives who could see years ahead in time could sometimes be infinitely complicated.

Those questions tormented him through the many minutes he watched and waited while Dietrich worked. Crawford collected Schuldig's hand in between his own and squeezed. If even a fraction of what he and Komarov had said to the Elders was true, Crawford's link to Schuldig would make his retrieval easier. Crawford forced all thoughts of Komarov out of his mind. He should focus on Schuldig, and Schuldig alone.

"Schuldig," he whispered. "Come back. I need you."

Dietrich's facial muscles twitched, but Schuldig's body did not come to life. Seconds and minutes dragged on. They stayed frozen into position, Crawford clasping Schuldig's hand, Dietrich's head resting on Schuldig's chest and his hand on Schuldig's forehead. Drops of sweat formed on Dietrich's forehead. He started to shake slightly. His lips parted for a gasp followed by other gasps. Tiny spasms went through his body.

Yet Dietrich kept at his task, minute after minute, hour after hour.

A doubt grew in Crawford's mind. Dietrich's condition was growing worse. Should he stir the man? But how? They had used the entire contents of the hypo on Schuldig, and Crawford was not educated in the finer points of various types of telepathic sleep. He might make more damage than good if he interfered. And so he was forced to wait and watch as excruciatingly long minutes slithered slowly by.

...until finally, Crawford felt Schuldig's hand moving in the cradle of his palms. It was only a twitch of a single finger, but it sent Crawford's heart racing. His eyes lit up.

"Schuldig?"

And finally, _finally_, he heard a response. It was nothing more than a barely audible whisper. "Crawford..."

Crawford felt slender fingers closing around his own. A shudder passed through his entire body. "Sch..." His voice broke halfway through the name.

"Crawford..." whispered the familiar voice. Schuldig's eyelids fluttered. He blinked up at the ceiling.

Crawford was lit up like a torch at the sight of the clear blue depths. His face melted into a smile. One of his hands held on tighter to Schuldig's hand while the other traded Schuldig's hand for the lush red hair, slipping artfully under Schuldig's head to cup it gently on his palm. He leaned closer.

Schuldig's eyes fell from the ceiling and locked with Crawford's. His lips curved slowly. "Oh, look..." There was laughter in his voice. "Crawford."

"Schuldig," Crawford murmured, then closed the distance between their mouths.

He never noticed that at the same moment, Dietrich's body went limp. The master telepath slid off from on top of Schuldig, fell on his knees and eventually collapsed on the floor like a wet rag doll.

Crawford never noticed, because Schuldig was kissing him back, and right at this moment, that was all that really mattered, and just maybe, it was all that needed to matter ever again.


	21. With or Without You

**- MINDS -**

**Chapter Sixteen  
:: with or without you ::**

Schuldig frowned at his own reflection in the full-sized mirror. He was like a fire-topped shadow in the middle of Dietrich's walk-in wardrobe — a small room filled with clothes that were arranged in military order. He was wearing a black Sigma Operations uniform, and his hair fell on his shoulders in unruly bunches of red-orange sunset. He tugged his collar impatiently, which did nothing to improve the way the uniform was hanging slightly loose here and there. It was one of Dietrich's, and Schuldig was not as muscular as Dietrich, especially after all the time the redhead had spent shrivelling away in his comatose state.

Schuldig made an annoyed sound. "This looks ridiculous."

"It's fine," mused Crawford's smiling voice from behind him. His dark shape hovered near the door.

Schuldig was too busy glowering at his own reflection to notice. "I thought I'd never have to wear one of these again," he muttered morosely.

Footsteps shuffled closer. "You didn't think Schwarz would ever be required to perform at any ceremony?" Crawford inquired.

Schuldig snorted. "Why would they want a bunch of clowns ruining everyone else's serious business?"

Crawford's tall figure came visible in the mirror like a shadow hovering over Schuldig's shoulder, the same side as the white armband on Schuldig's jacket. One fine eyebrow was curved into a curious arch. "Clowns?"

Schuldig tugged at his collar impatiently again. "You know Schwarz is just a band of bad boys looking for trouble."

Crawford's good-natured chuckle finally pulled Schuldig's attention. Schuldig took in Crawford's familiar figure. The precognitive's hair was combed, and his black uniform was in perfect order. On the outside, Crawford's hard shell was intact — but when Schuldig met his eyes, the harsh amber behind Crawford's glasses melted into honey. The slight curve of Crawford's mouth was the shape of warm memories that glowed between them as Crawford slid his hand up Schuldig's arm.

"You always did have a way of disrupting ceremonies," Crawford mused. With a gentle, absent sort of a tug, Crawford fixed the position of the jacket on Schuldig's shoulders.

Schuldig leaned back against Crawford's chest. His gaze fell, then clung to one of the buttons on Crawford's uniform. He raised his hand to touch it with one finger. "You, though," he murmured. "All pomp and circumstance." His finger played with the button. It was shiny, just like the rest of Crawford's armour. "You're not a clown. You're the director of the circus."

Crawford averted his eyes with an obvious attempt to appear like he was doing nothing but checking Schuldig's outfit. But the shift of the lines on his face suggested undefined stirrings somewhere beneath the calm surface. Schuldig's eyes roamed on the slice of Crawford's body that was visible in the mirror. Unlike Schuldig, Crawford was a perfect fit for Dietrich's clothes. It had never occurred to Schuldig just how similar the two men were in all of the purely physical ways.

Perhaps a few non-physical ways, too. Schuldig was thinking that the leader of Schwarz had always carried his title like a mask, just like the head supervisor of Rosenkreuz Operations did. The smooth surfaces protected the vulnerable places underneath. Crawford's chest was touching Schuldig's shoulder. Schuldig's breath was spreading on his skin. Something else was spreading somewhere deeper underneath.

Something, something. Something that had been built in the past between them. Something lost and something found. Something that swelled inside Crawford, something that was a little bit of pleasure and more than a heavy helping of bitter pain.

Crawford kept it locked up tight, firmly out of sight. He let out a thin exhale intended to discreetly purge his body of the emotion that threatened to obstruct his breathing. Schuldig listened to the quietly rippling waves of something he had never heard before, something that had never been present, not even once in all the years they had worked together, breathed together, lived together.

Crystalline pain like sharpened shards of diamonds gathered at the base of Crawford's chest. The precognitive kept it there like a cherished treasure, a trunk full of untold riches that were all cold and soulless like wealth always is — unless it is shared. Schuldig wanted to share, better yet, he wanted to grab it and feel its weight in his hands. This pain was precious. Pure. Schuldig hovered at the entrance of a goldmine of suppressed suffering. It was Schuldig's favourite pastime to play in such dark dungeons, but... even as the burning hunger ignited inside him, another kind of warmth spread over the length of his back, reminding him that these particular dark dungeons belonged to Crawford. This was Crawford's pain.

Crawford's pain was off limits.

Crawford's hand lingered on Schuldig's sleeve. His warm body stayed where it was, not quite hugging, not quite keeping its distance. Schuldig tilted his head. Crawford was still facing the mirror, and it looked as though he was staring at Schuldig's reflection — but his eyes weren't entirely there.

Crawford's eyes. They hadn't yet discussed the matter of Crawford's eyes. They hadn't really discussed the particulars of anything that had happened in the forest.

"So..." Schuldig moistened his lips. His eyes darted all over Crawford's face. "You can see, yeah?"

Crawford's jaws shifted, his lips moved but no sound emerged from his throat. After a long, frozen second, he finally dipped his head briefly. "It's not the same it was..." he said quietly. "But yes, Schuldig. I can see."

_Schuldig. I can see._ Those words echoed in Schuldig's mind. They came with a heavy weight that latched onto the bottom of his chest and hung on like it meant to drag his heart into his stomach.

_Schuldig. I can see._ Crawford's voice, like a long lost breath filling his lungs.

_Schuldig. I can see._

_I can see._ Words Schuldig should never have heard, but he _had_.

Schuldig remembered.

He remembered what he had almost lost — and what he was now about to recover. Crawford was the missing piece of a puzzle that had waited years for assembly. Schuldig's eyes were drawn to Crawford effortlessly like two brilliant blue lodestones attracted to the North Pole. He would always find that man effortlessly. Schuldig measured the straight shoulders and the flawless, familiar form. It was the exact reproduction of the image that had hounded his dying sleep.

Brad Crawford was a fixture in Schuldig's mind.

The golden eyes stayed with the mirror. Crawford was silent and Schuldig's words were locked in his chest along with his breath, but the seconds that dragged on between them were full of noise. Schuldig opened his mouth, but he choked on everything he wanted to say. It could all be condensed to a single question.

_Do you remember?_

Bloodied hands searching Schuldig's face. Feverish lips wanting to suck in his soul. The forest. Everything before that. Everything after. Everything that had changed in the forest, and everything that could change now.

Everything.

Schuldig extended his hand towards Crawford's sleeve. "Brad..."

Crawford's eyebrows jerked. His fingertips twitched. His hand slipped down from Schuldig's shoulder, with an apparent intention to move away from Schuldig's reach.

Schuldig caught the elusive, escaping sleeve. "Brad."

The sleeve froze, while the uniform attached to it flinched.

"Brad," Schuldig whispered again. He buried his nose into Crawford's cheek.

Crawford froze — for one, two, three seconds. Then, to Schuldig's delight, the precognitive's body relaxed. With a tiny shiver, tentatively and briefly like a cat testing a hot plate, Crawford nuzzled his cheek discreetly against Schuldig's nose. Schuldig felt Crawford's facial muscles moving. He thought, for a moment, that Crawford was about to turn to kiss him, but...

"I should get going," Crawford said. "I need to find Farfarello."

So easily, Crawford went back to business. Disappointment prickled inside Schuldig. He didn't reply. Crawford lingered, like he was waiting. He was very close. Very warm. Schuldig kept thinking about the mind lock and about everything Crawford had shared with him. He kept thinking about the forest — but then he thought about the fading light and about the darkness that had taken him, and he realised that he was thinking about all the reasons why he shouldn't pursue this.

Maybe he understood why Crawford did not kiss him. Schuldig was thinking about the past and he wasn't so sure about the future.

"You really expect them to put Schwarz back together?" he asked quietly. His knuckles turned white, he held Crawford's sleeve tighter. "They never reassemble teams they've disbanded. It'd be like admitting that they've made a mistake, and they don't like doing that."

Crawford shook his head. "It was our mistake, not theirs. If we present the appropriate apologies, they'll give us a second chance."

A sharp stab of displeasure twisted Schuldig's mouth into a snarl. "Us?" he hissed. "After what they did to us... _they_ should be apologising."

Crawford's face did not as much as flinch, but he was standing a little more rigid. "We can't afford that attitude, Schuldig." His tone was sharp. "You know how this works. We owe them for every breath we take. If we break the rules, we are punished."

Schuldig glowered at Crawford's serious face. It wasn't fair to be angry, because Crawford was only putting to words what they both knew to be true, but a part of him hated Crawford for saying it out loud.

"It's still stupid to kill me for it," Schuldig complained. "I locked minds with you, and I saw a glimpse of their precious plans. So what? Didn't they trust me to keep it to myself?"

Crawford clicked his tongue. "The theory goes that a telepath doesn't need to betray his master consciously to cause damage."

Offended pride was written all over Schuldig's face. The implied lack of faith in his professional abilities made the insult even worse!

"Like you said, Schuldig," Crawford noted dryly, "why would they want a clown ruining their serious business?"

Schuldig sucked in his lower lip. He didn't like Crawford's insinuations, but reluctantly, he had to admit that the precognitive had a point. Whether or not the suspicions were justified was irrelevant. Schuldig did not have the best image — he had never been able to play nice the way his team leader had. They always said that he lacked perspective. Sarcastically speaking, he supposed it was true. After all, he wasn't a hundred-year-old crone so used to burying himself under a stack of comfy pillows that he had forgotten what it felt like to take your chances in the real world. The Elders always wanted to be sure. They preferred to play with loaded dice. Dietrich had told him that many times.

Schuldig harrumphed. "Fine," he scoffed. "They don't like taking risks. I get it. But doesn't that just make it more unlikely that they'd give us another chance?"

Crawford adjusted the position of his glasses on his nose. "I've made sure they realise that Project Schwarz is worth a little risk."

Schuldig's eyes narrowed. His tone dropped a few degrees below zero. "_Project_ Schwarz?"

Crawford evaluated his face for a moment before responding. "Yes," he confirmed. "We all have a project designation. You are sub-project Red Demon. I'm not sure what my designation is. They don't think it's necessary to burden the specimen with information about their status in the system."

Schuldig's lips twisted into a dirty snarl. "But some specimen know more than others," he snapped. It was as good as an accusation.

Crawford stared directly at Schuldig with an odd look on his face. "People have been known to get killed when too much information is shared without authorisation," was his quiet answer.

Schuldig snapped his mouth shut. Maybe all the missing pieces of Crawford's response leaked out into Schuldig's head — Schuldig was thinking about what had happened in the forest. Schuldig said not a word, but an important realisation was shining in his eyes.

_You were protecting me. This whole time, I thought you were playing games, but you were just protecting me. Is that it?_

The question, as well as the answer, hung unspoken between them. Crawford's hand slid on Schuldig's arm towards the wrist.

"I couldn't tell you before," Crawford murmured. "But you need to know now. Project Schwarz is a secret weapons development programme headed by Herr Dietrich and supervised by the Elders. In the course of the past thirty years, several specimen have been selected and manipulated to be particularly receptive to telepathic bonding. They were all going to be placed in the same team with a very special core telepath." Crawford gave Schuldig a meaningful look.

"Me," Schuldig concluded.

Crawford nodded. "A telepathic network was supposed to evolve naturally around you. All telepaths form connections with their team mates, but this was supposed to go farther than that. You were supposed to become the nervous system that would bind us to each other to the point that we would function like a well-oiled machine beyond the capabilities of any ordinary team."

Schuldig quirked an eyebrow. "With you at the wheel."

"The team needed someone who was capable of directing the link." Crawford's eyes returned to the mirror. "The organisation has invested a great deal of resources in this project. We need to reassure the Elders that you can be trusted, but they will want to continue the project. We'll get a chance to prove ourselves. They are about to perform an important ritual in Japan. They believe it will give them enough power to level entire cities with nothing but a wave of their hands. I've convinced them that Schwarz can help them."

Schuldig's fingers crawled to hold Crawford's coat tighter. "Why?" he whispered.

Crawford paused. He peered at Schuldig from the corner of his eye. "What?"

"Why?" Schuldig repeated emphatically. "Why would we want to get involved?"

Crawford stared at Schuldig as though the telepath had just asked him why they preferred that the sun got up every morning. Schuldig flicked his hand impatiently.

"They talk to us about paradise, but it's just a different kind of a prison. You know that, Crawford. We'll never be free. Even if they bring about their new world order and we become the new elite, we'll still be slaves to the system, just like we are now." Schuldig's frown deepened into a scowl. His tone hardened. "You should know. You've had us running their errands. You've been helping them this whole time."

Crawford's eyebrows crumpled to a frown. "What choice did I have?"

"You have a choice now," Schuldig returned hotly. "It's not rocket science, Crawford! We can pick up reinforcements from right here at Rosenkreuz. The guinea pigs at the labs would come with us, and I bet I can convince some of the kids from the school. We'd pack enough power to fight the authorities for a decade at least." Schuldig tugged Crawford's sleeve. "With your visions, we can probably run and hide for another two."

A profound silence hung in the air. Crawford kept staring at Schuldig with an incredulous expression that gave Schuldig all the answers he didn't want. Schuldig's eyebrows formed a displeased, disappointed squiggle on top of the hard blue pieces of ice.

"What, you're too hung up on your retirement plan?" Schuldig's voice dripped with sarcasm.

The accusation triggered a rush of rage. Crawford's face went through variations of indignation before settling on cold anger that burst out with a huffed question, "Why is it always 'fight' with you?"

Schuldig's face twisted into a wolfish snarl. "Maybe because I'm fucking good at it?"

"Right." Crawford's nostrils flared. "You'd challenge the whole world!"

Bitterly disappointed by Crawford's reaction, Schuldig jutted his chin up angrily. "Yeah!" he spat, his eyes flashing."Yeah I would!"

"Well! If you have it all figured out, why don't you just go?" Crawford swept his hand in an angry arc towards the door.

Schuldig's knuckles turned white. "Because I'd rather go with you!" he hissed.

Crawford's mouth opened, but nothing came out. Schuldig pressed his lips together like it might help him take it back. He hadn't meant to say it.

Judging by the widening amber eyes, Crawford had not expected to hear it.

A long stretch of silence followed as the two stared at one another. Crawford stood still like an animal stands when it is hoping that if it hides in the thicket, the predator won't see it — but he was in plain sight of the predator's blue eyes. Schuldig's expression softened more with every second Crawford hesitated. He stopped regretting his words altogether by the time Crawford dropped his eyes to the floor like a flustered school boy. Schuldig leaned in, brought their mouths that much closer.

"Come on, Crawford," Schuldig whispered. "You know I need your help. You've still got some funds, right? You can pull them. If you don't want to run, we can set up our own fortress somewhere."

A lump moved in Crawford's throat. "Live the rest of our lives hiding out in our own little cottage in the woods?" he asked hoarsely. He puffed out a sound that might have been meant as a snort. "With children flocking at our feet?"

Schuldig gave a slight shrug. "We've had practice taking care of your little stray." His face was completely serious, assuring Crawford that so was his suggestion. He tilted his head expectantly.

Crawford took a deep breath, then he closed his eyes, and his mind went Elsewhere in that way it always did when he was looking into the future.

Schuldig waited. His every cell was suspended, his eyes clung to Crawford's broad-shouldered, well aligned figure. He waited and waited. Waited.

Waited.

As seconds ticked by and Crawford's mind drifted farther and farther, Schuldig's shoulders began to slope. Somewhere inside, he knew that their conversation was over long before it had ever started. If Crawford had foreseen them escaping Eszett, Schuldig wouldn't need to stand here trying to convince him. And if Crawford hadn't foreseen it, it wouldn't happen.

"Schuldig." Crawford opened his eyes. He stared at a place somewhere in the distance. "Whether or not we go to Japan, the Elders will perform the ritual. If they succeed in completing it, their influence will spread. Every psychic who doesn't serve them will eventually be hunted down and killed." He turned slowly to face Schuldig. His eyes were hard, his facial muscles tense. "But if we do go to Japan, we can stop them."

Schuldig balled his free hand to a fist. He took a deep breath. And then another, and another. He had to take a great many breaths before he was able to muster a lopsided mirthless smile.

"You want to stop the bad guys from taking over the world?" the telepath murmured. "I never pegged you for the hero type."

"Hero?" Crawford directed a disapproving frown at Schuldig. "I'm just taking care of my own interests."

Schuldig quirked a challenging eyebrow. "Oh?" His keen eyes dared Crawford to say out loud what his "own interests" were in this case.

Stubbornly, Crawford just kept staring back.

"It's your choice, Schuldig," he said harshly. "If you want to run, I won't stop you. But I _am_ going to Japan. With or without you."

Schuldig shook his head. "It's not a choice," he reminded Crawford. "If you won't come with me, I won't last a year." He let go of Crawford's sleeve and reached up to touch the rim of Crawford's glasses with his fingertips. "I need your eyes," he whispered.

Crawford's face did something odd. "Wrong," he said. His voice was even more alien than his expression.

Schuldig raised his brows. He forgot his hand hovering somewhere near Crawford's face. "What?"

There was something in Crawford's expression, something that didn't make any sense to Schuldig because it didn't fit Crawford's face. Crawford looked at Schuldig like a homesick man would look at a photograph of his house.

"You really haven't figured it out?" Crawford's voice was suddenly hoarse in a thoroughly un-Crawfordian manner. "The reason they are so afraid of you... the reason they killed you... is because you _don't_ need anyone."

Schuldig stared.

Crawford kept talking, though it sounded like every word was a struggle. "You're unpredictable, which makes it difficult for my breed to track you. But more importantly..." Crawford paused. "...you can liquidate the brains of any army they sent after you."

"What?" Schuldig was completely nonplussed. "Liquidate an army? That's ridiculous. I can erase minds but..." Schuldig shook his head. "It's not like that, Crawford."

"It can be." Crawford scanned Schuldig's face. "I haven't seen the reports but I've seen..." His tongue darted out to wet his lips briefly. "I've seen something. I know something happened when they brought you to Rosenkreuz. Whatever it was, it scared them. It scared Colonel Amlisch enough that he has wanted you terminated ever since."

"Yeah, I know something happened," Schuldig said impatiently. "I linked with the wrong people and..." He waved his hand. "I don't know. But whatever it was, it wasn't like that, Crawford. Sure, yeah, I've bumped a few people the wrong way, I've erased minds and I've smashed through shields. But there's a reason why they were able to put me in that lab and keep me there, Crawford. I'm not invincible. I can knock people out but I wouldn't even know how to..." He made a face. "...liquidate anyone's brain."

"Not now, no," Crawford agreed. "Maybe you don't know how to do it because they've programmed you that way after the incident. Or maybe it's just an instinctive reflex that you don't know how to control because no one has taught you. But you _can_ do it."

"But we're talking about advanced telepaths," Schuldig argued. "Better yet, we're talking about advanced kinetics protected by advanced telepaths. You don't seriously think I could take on whole fucking teams, Crawford."

"If you ever unlock your potential, you can. I know you can. _They_ know you can. That's why they're afraid of you." Crawford's voice dropped, became musky. "And that's why you can survive without me."

Schuldig would have had a hundred arguments, but as he searched Crawford's eyes, he realised...

"You've seen it," he whispered. Schuldig's fingers clenched, he balled both hands into fists. "Haven't you?"

Crawford's jaws moved. "I've seen something," he confessed quietly. "I've seen enough."

Another oppressive silence fell into the little wardrobe. The absolute hush weighed on Schuldig's shoulders like an iron cloak. He understood what Crawford was doing. Suddenly, he also understood that homesick look on Crawford's face. Crawford was giving up control, giving Schuldig a genuine choice, one unlike anything he had ever given him before. Schuldig had always had alternatives, yet he had been led to believe that there was, really, very little choice — his future was either with Crawford, or with some other team leader. Schuldig had learned to find comfort in the idea. By telling him that he didn't need anyone else, Crawford presented him with a whole new world of options. Schuldig could leave right now and discover his true limits. He could explore the extent of his talent. He could strike out on his own. Schuldig knew that Crawford meant every word he said. Crawford would let him go.

This could be a goodbye.

But Schuldig was thinking about the forest. He was thinking about Japan, and about Crawford's promises — both those that were in the past and those that might still be in the future. Crawford's future could mean anything, but Schuldig was thinking about a deathly silence in the forest and starry skies that reached out into infinity, just like the vast empty space inside him every time Crawford's consciousness had dwindled.

And he was thinking, what would he do without Crawford? Did he want to go, if Crawford didn't come with him? Did he really have a choice?

Schuldig's trail of thought faded out as his feelings ran off course into places he didn't dare to follow. He shook his shoulders, trying to shake off the unexpected discomfort. This hesitation was unnecessary. The answer was clear, and it had nothing to do with what he wanted or didn't want. It was pure logic, just like everything between him and Crawford had always been.

Schuldig straightened his shoulders. "Okay," he said briskly. "You might be right, but I don't know how to do it yet. So." He jutted up his chin. "Help me figure it out, and I'll come to Japan with you."

It was like a barrier breaking, the way the flustered pleasure worked its way across Crawford's face, then spread through the precognitive's body. Crawford melted against Schuldig, his arm wound around Schuldig's waist and pulled him closer to connect their hips. He leaned in, his entire being glowing with warmth. His voice was subdued, barely audible.

"I'll do my best."

Schuldig cocked his head to the side. An affectionate Crawford was a rare treat, and it probably wouldn't last long. The hard edges would be back. Crawford would probably shut himself tighter than before and retreat farther than Schuldig could reach. But right now, right at this moment, Crawford was something different.

Like this, Crawford belonged to Schuldig.

The telepath clasped Crawford's wrist. With a sly smile, he planted his other hand on Crawford's cheek. "You didn't think," he mused, "that I'd let you have all the fun — did you?" He tilted his face up, putting his smirking lips at a tantalisingly perfect angle for a kiss.

Crawford's eyes fell in that tell-tale way. He started to lean in to take the offered treat, holding Schuldig tighter waist to waist — but just before their lips would have connected, Crawford froze. The warmth fell away as though swept off by a dark shadow. Schuldig only had the time to sense a distant something, like a half-audible echo of thunder, before the storm crashed into his head. This wasn't Crawford's usual controlled, calm quiet that had so often brought peace to Schuldig. This was something raw, unchained, like a howl rising from a beast's chest. Though he stared directly into Schuldig's eyes, something told Schuldig that Crawford wasn't seeing him at all.

"Prove to me it's really you," Crawford whispered.

Schuldig blinked rapidly several times in surprise. "What?"

Crawford's eyes narrowed to thin slits. Schuldig heard quietly building rage like the growl of a bear at the back of the his head. Schuldig's smile died, as did every last ounce of his good cheer. Crawford's arm abandoned Schuldig's waist. He buried his hand into Schuldig's hair, his fingers crawled to grab a firm fistful, and suddenly Schuldig saw his own head smashed against the mirror and a shower of a million pieces of glistening glass spreading on the floor, and he knew that the image was coming from Crawford's head. It was what Crawford's madness could do if Schuldig didn't give him what he wanted.

"He pretended to be you," Crawford huffed. "Prove to me it's really you this time."

"How am I supposed to do that?" Schuldig was getting angry. "Is it my fault you're stupid enough to fall for Herr Dietrich's parlour tricks?"

Crawford's eyes were furious and wild. "He knew things only you should know. Damn it, Schuldig! Prove to me it's you!"

"Fuck off, you asshole, it's me!" An offended pout challenged Crawford to doubt him.

Stubbornly, Crawford shook his head. "Prove it." His fist trembled, his entire body was shaking with barely contained rage as he glared at Schuldig from under his brows.

Crawford's firm refusal to listen to reason was so uncharacteristic that Schuldig's upset finally switched to concern. "Crawford." Schuldig searched Crawford's dark eyes that seemed to stare right past him. "What the hell do you think you're looking at?"

But Crawford wasn't even listening any more.

"Damn it, Schuldig," Crawford whispered. "Prove to me it's you." His voice broke towards the end.

Schuldig's upper lip curled to a snarl. "All right," he growled. "I'll fucking prove it to you!" With that, he slammed his hands on both sides of Crawford's head and yanked him closer to crush Crawford's mouth with his own. A shocked jerk went through Crawford's body. The golden eyes flashed wide open.

Schuldig's lips massaged Crawford's lips, his tongue pushed to demand access into Crawford's mouth. He shoved his hips forward, once, twice, again and again, forcing Crawford to take a step back, then another, and another. He backed Crawford up to the door. Waist to waist, chest to chest, he pinned Crawford's body against the door frame. Schuldig took advantage of Crawford's surprised gasp and pried his mouth open. He sucked in Crawford's tongue.

And then he sucked in Crawford's mind. It wasn't like the mind lock, they didn't so much fall as they dwindled out of reality and into a place somewhere in the slips and cracks in between one form of existence and another. Blink, and they were somewhere else — in a bottomless vacuum where they had no bodies, nothing but a strong sensation of a presence that kept becoming thinner and thinner.

Thinner and thinner, until they reached a compressed point where even the sensation of a presence disappeared. There was a gasp that released them from the vacuum. With a smacking sound, something came loose, then swiftly the vast nothing became solid, and suddenly they had a presence again.

Schuldig pulled his head back. They were standing in what appeared to be a tiny room made from bright white walls. It was like a box made from blinding white light. They were no longer adults. Crawford was standing with his eyes very wide in his grey student uniform — complete with the badges that marked him for a prefect of the third level. Schuldig, too, was a teenager, wearing white clothes.

"Here, remember this?" Schuldig asked. "Our Place? Where we used to hide from them?"

Crawford swallowed, his eyes kept going wider and wider. Schuldig shook his wild sunset hair, and the next moment their surroundings changed again. The white walls sucked in all space, then exploded outwards. A mountainous landscape climbed into existence. The ceiling expanded and turned sky blue. The floor under them transformed into a rock sticking out of the water. They were standing on the shore of a creek.

But they were not looking at the landscape. They were staring at an ominous dark wall that hovered over them like a shadow.

"Or this? You remember this?" Schuldig kept his eyes on the shadow. "That time I broke through the shield he put in me?" The wind caught his hair and created an illusion of fire that soon turned into real fire. The flames fell on the rock and quickly circled them both, then began to build higher and higher, until they were standing in the middle of a swirling, swelling, crackling fire storm.

Crawford stood completely frozen, his shoulder touching Schuldig's shoulder, his eyes fixed on the glimpses of darkness in the distance beyond the wall of fire.

The fire storm spun around them, then swallowed them, burned away the illusion, and this time, they did fall. They fell right into a third memory, much more recent one. Schuldig's very much adult body was sitting in the haphazardly built camp in the forest, cradling Crawford's bandaged head close to his chest. Crawford was staring up into Schuldig's face. It was dark except for the flickers of firelight that danced on Schuldig's sunset hair, and everything was as quiet as it ever was in a forest full of rustling leaves and gently hooting night owls.

Schuldig's eyes glistened in the firelight. He was smiling, and Crawford's fingers slid on his lips to explore the curve of his smile. Crawford's body shuddered slightly.

"Do you remember?" Schuldig leaned down closer to Crawford's face. "You asked me if I did it for you, or for me." He searched Crawford's wide, oh, so very wide eyes. His smile gained depth, and he lowered his head some more. "And I told you," Schuldig murmured, "I did it for the both of us."

With that, he closed the gap between their mouths and claimed Crawford's breath. The landscape around them dissolved into darkness. The memory retreated back into the past like the tide returns to the ocean. Space and shape got back their true forms. They were back in their bodies, Crawford's head held in the cup of Schuldig's palms, his glasses pushed out of place by Schuldig's hungry fingers. Crawford was standing with his eyes closed, one hand lost in Schuldig's hair and the other clinging to Schuldig's waist. His entire body was tense like that of a man who had just been punched in the guts.

Schuldig released Crawford's mouth and licked his lips. He opened his eyes to search for Crawford's eyes. Crawford kept his eyes closed. He was taking deep, slow breaths.

"It's you," whispered Crawford.

Schuldig relinquished his death grip of Crawford's head only just to run his fingers through the thick black hair. "Of course it's me," he murmured, then gave a laugh. "Can't you tell by the attitude?"

Crawford didn't join in the laughter. He opened his eyes slowly, almost like he was afraid of doing so. But as soon as his eyes caught sight of Schuldig's face, his tense facial muscles relaxed. "It's you," he whispered again. "But... for a second there... I saw him."

Schuldig raised his brows. "Herr Dietrich?"

Crawford nodded and dropped his eyes to the floor. Schuldig gave it some thought, then nodded slowly.

"I guess that makes sense. You said it yourself, it's different." His eyes studied Crawford's face while his fingers swept over Crawford's cheek and nudged his glasses back into place, then brushed back a few strands of black hair that he had mussed out of arrangement. "Your eyes," he elaborated. "It's different, yeah? The link between me and Herr Dietrich was deep. Maybe you just saw the residue."

Crawford frowned. "You suggest I can see telepathic energy." He sounded dubious.

Schuldig shrugged. "Or you're going crazy," he said. "Either or."

Crawford's lips formed a tense, distinctly unamused line. Schuldig's fingers continued to play with a few strands of Crawford's hair while his eyes measured the precognitive's troubled expression. Little by little, the telepath's smile faded away. Schuldig's eyes travelled over Crawford's shoulder. The room on the other side of the door was Dietrich's bedroom. The giant bed was visible at the opposite end. A dark shape was lying motionless on the white sheets.

"Wow..." Schuldig murmured. "He really put you through the paces, didn't he?" He didn't have to say the name out loud. He knew that both of them preferred to avoid hearing it.

Crawford kept staring at the floor. "It's fine," he said quietly.

At this, Schuldig snapped his eyes back to Crawford's face. His brow crumpled to a displeased frown. "Fine?" he asked acidly. "Crawford, it's a lot of things but it sure as fuck is not 'fine'. He fucked you over. It's okay to be angry." Schuldig's frown deepened into a scowl. "Fuck, I'm fucking livid."

"That's to be expected," Crawford murmured. "He sat by watching you get killed."

"That's right. Which means he sat by watching your partner getting killed. And you think that's 'fine'?"

An uncharacteristically anxious frown disturbed Crawford's brows. The arm that was draped around Schuldig's waist convulsed. Strange lines appeared all over Crawford's face and Schuldig could hear it again, the pain prickling somewhere at the base of Crawford's being.

"Why do you do this to me?" Crawford asked with a choked voice.

Schuldig's brows jumped. "Me?" He was visibly affronted. His hands fell from Crawford's hair and landed on the man's shoulders. "What the hell am I doing to you?"

Crawford swallowed. His fingers slipped from Schuldig's hair and found the telepath's shoulder, then slid down, down, down on Schuldig's back. He kept his eyes in one of the cold metal buttons of Schuldig's jacket while both his arms wound around Schuldig's waist tighter.

"You... you... make me like this..." Crawford's halting words ran out on him. He let out a frustrated grunt, shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut. "I can't be like this," he whispered hoarsely.

Schuldig was one of the best telepaths that had ever graduated from Rosenkreuz. He was hearing everything that Crawford struggled to hide underneath the tense, tormented lines of his face. Embarrassment was shining on top of it all like icing on the cake, which Schuldig devoured hungrily. Schuldig's expression softened. His fingers crawled to collect Crawford's collar in a firm fist.

"Listen, Crawford," he purred. "Don't you think that 'this' is exactly what you have to be?" He draped his other arm around Crawford's shoulders and pressed the full length of his warm body against Crawford's bigger body. "At the end of the day...Schwarz is nothing but a bunch of misfits. We don't need a leader who can show us good example. We need someone who understands us. You're that leader, because under all that polished pomp..." Schuldig's lips curved to a gentle smile, "you're a mess just like the rest of us."

Back in the past, weeks and months ago, before the forest, it would have been enough to make Crawford pull up all his defences, maybe invite a sharp remark. But today, in the present that followed the vast length of disconnectedness that had separated them for what felt like aeons, Crawford did not retreat, did not return an affronted reply. He returned no reply at all. He just stood there in complete silence that tried to keep itself together and figure out a way out that didn't involve addressing any of what Schuldig had just said.

Schuldig didn't need to be a precognitive to know what Crawford would say next. He measured Crawford's distraught face. He waited for the inevitable words...

"I need to get going," Crawford said.

There it was. Crawford was doing what Crawford did best — avoided the subject. Crawford was like an oyster. He kept his hidden treasure locked up tight underneath a hard, impenetrable shell.

Well. Schuldig had not only his life, but also his Crawford back. He had time to pry the oyster's jaws open.

"All right." Schuldig tapped his temple. "I'll keep a line open. Alert me if something happens."

Crawford finally opened his eyes and looked up from under his brows. His eyes lingered with Schuldig's face. For a second, it looked like he might be about to say something, but the intention to speak died before it ever materialised in the movement of his lips. He released Schuldig's waist and ran his large, warm hands up Schuldig's back, until he finally cupped Schuldig's shoulders under his palms. An attempt at a smile on his face, Crawford leaned in a little.

"I'll be back soon," Crawford said.

Schuldig let his hands fall from Crawford's shoulders. He offered a confident smile along with the assurance, "I'll be here."

The promise made the smile extend all the way to Crawford's eyes. He gave one last squeeze to Schuldig's shoulders, then spun on his heels and slipped away. Schuldig was left standing at the doorway, watching Crawford's escaping shape. When the bedroom door clicked closed after Crawford, Schuldig stuck his hands in his pockets and leaned his shoulder to the door frame. His eyes drifted over to the bed — and clung to the unmoving shape of the man lying in it. As Crawford's footsteps faded away, the unconscious Herr Adelbert Dietrich and his former star pupil were left alone in the head supervisor's spacious bedroom.

Schuldig's upper lip curled into a sneer. He pushed himself off on his feet and started to stalk towards the bed with the slow, determined steps of a predator on the prowl.

Or like a ghost of vengeance.


	22. Made For A Purpose

**- MINDS -**

**Chapter Seventeen  
:: made for a purpose ::**

Dietrich was lying on his side, his eyes closed, his dark hair thrown about the pillow. His shirt was gone, he was wearing nothing but his uniform trousers. The sunrise streaming in through the window painted the entire room orange and red. The intense colours set off the firelight hair of the demon hovering over the slumped, unconscious man. Slender, pale fingers dug into the bare skin of Dietrich's stomach like talons of an eagle.

"Wake up, mein Herr," Schuldig whispered. His nails tracked deep, painful lines on Dietrich's muscles. His telepathic claws went much deeper. His talent slipped smoothly in under the elder telepath's battered armour, dripping through the cracks of his shattered shields like water seeping in through the ruptures of a broken dam.

Deeper, deeper, Schuldig's telepathic blade plunged deep into the swelling shadow below to stir it out of its slumber.

With a gasp, Dietrich's body arched, his chin jerked up. "Mitya..." The name was whispered with a hoarse, breathless wheeze, quickly followed by an anxious, "Mitya, no..."

The red-haired demon's keen, merciless eyes remained fixed on Dietrich's face. "No, not Mitya," Schuldig whispered. He lay in wait like a predator peering over the edge of a rock, watching its prey slowly swim closer to the surface of the stream.

Dietrich's eyelids fluttered halfway open. His disoriented eyes searched uselessly for the source of the voice.

"You..." Dietrich croaked. "Did you..." His shaking hand searched and found Schuldig's wrist near his stomach. His face was pale and ridden with deep lines that twisted into a strange, strained expression as he demanded with a hoarse hiss, "Did you hear it?"

Schuldig sat on his knees in silence, his unblinking blue eyes never leaving Dietrich's face. He waited. The lines on Dietrich's face went through rage, horror, and finally pain as the silence dragged on. His grip of Schuldig's wrist tightened and his eyes kept wandering aimlessly like he couldn't even see Schuldig, like he was looking for something, desperate to find what simply wasn't there, and not understanding the first thing about that which was.

A pair of blue, unforgiving eyes waited.

"Did you hear it?" Dietrich asked again, feverish with hope and terror both — hope for the answer he did want, terror for the one he did not. His hand trembled, his eyes were wild, his voice kept breaking. "I heard him," he insisted like a madman. "Was just a dream?" His voice faded into a frustrated, indistinct moan and a pleading whimper, "Mitya, are you still there?"

The red-haired demon simply waited, silently, with nothing but a long slow blink in response.

Dietrich's eyes kept on searching, his lips kept on whispering without sound, until at long last, the glazed crystals passed over Schuldig's face and clung to the line of his cheek, the sharp turn of his mouth. Confusion worked its way across the elder telepath's face. It took several more seconds, several more trembling breaths in and out of Dietrich's lungs — then finally, the tense lines of his face melted. Recognition spread in Dietrich's liquid grey pools as they searched Schuldig's slender features. His eyes glistening with tears, Dietrich began to smile. The crippling chaos inside him erupted into delighted relief.

"You..." he rasped. "It's you, my pet."

Schuldig's fingernails sank into Dietrich's stomach, clawing out a shocked gasp. A violent slap tossed Dietrich's head to the side. Like a dark storm rising, Schuldig leaned forward, his eyes gleaming dangerously from under his brows.

"Pet?" he spat. "You dare still call me that?"

Dietrich kept his head where it was, half buried into the pillow, his cheeks slightly flushed. His smile was gone, his single visible eye was suddenly wide as a saucer. The liquid crystal was fixed on Schuldig's face, and everything inside him — completely, perfectly still, breathless, brought into focus and shocked into absolute silence.

But no fear. Schuldig licked his lips, while his talent licked all through the shivering splash of a shadow lying in the bed. There was nothing to catch but a choked breath, Dietrich was struggling to hold back, hold in, hold, hold, hold the thunder that was rising inside him.

Schuldig increased the pressure, easing against the man's shields lazily like a feline predator rubbing against a glass wall, his eyes trained on what awaited behind the fragile fortification.

"Aren't you going to tell me to stop, mein Herr?" Schuldig inquired innocently. His talent slowly but surely encroached into the suspended silence, spreading over Dietrich's very being, threatening to crush him with its weight. "Aren't you going to tell the little spark what to do?" His lips pulled to an ugly sneer. "Like in the old times?"

Dietrich pursed his lips together. He gulped, tried to gulp down everything. The darkness beneath his shields was vast but it was not empty and bottomless like it normally was. A storm was brewing, like noise that tried to manifest as a physical being somewhere in the depths of the dark chasm that was Dietrich's soul, ah, but it was not anger, it was not rage, it was but a fistful of crystal shards like the pieces of a mirror reflecting ever-inwards to project a thousand flickers of light.

Pure, beautiful pain. Schuldig brushed over it, like he would pass a delicate hand over a pile of cracked glass. Dietrich flinched physically.

"You could destroy us, you know," Schuldig whispered, his darkened eyes not moving for a second from Dietrich's face. "You could blame all this on me. You could tell them I killed Herr Komarov. You could figure out a way to lock Crawford up in the laboratories with me. All you need to do is shut me up... pump me full of drugs... I don't know, maybe there's a guard running here right now." Schuldig tilted his head to the side. "Hmm?" His harsh eyes demanded an answer.

The liquid was gathering and beginning to turn Dietrich's single visible eye misty. His lips formed a tense line. Everything about him was just that — tense but ever so thin, like a worn wire wound too tight, about to snap. He was desperately clinging to that wire to hold him still, hold him steady, hold, hold — hold.

Hold the pain.

"No?" Schuldig cocked a mocking eyebrow. "Maybe you've realised that I'm the only person who can save you right now."

Another gulp, and Dietrich screwed his eyes shut. A couple of tears squeezed out from under his eyelids. Schuldig watched the drops trickling down Dietrich's cheek, slow down on their way over the cheekbone, then take a sharp dive towards the nose. With a rigid shake of the head, Schuldig collected the moisture off Dietrich's skin with one unkind finger, brutally sweeping away the symbol of the hurt that the man did not deserve to feel. He wiped it on the sheets like it was dirt, filthy and as worthless as Dietrich himself.

Dietrich kept holding his breath, holding, holding everything inside, holding against the swelling sea of shards inside him.

Schuldig hovered closer, leaning in telepathically ever closer, closer, slowly and ever so effortlessly flattening himself over that thin film of self-control that kept the earthquake contained in the depths of Dietrich's shivering soul. His lips curved to a cruel smile.

"You're hanging by a thread," he hissed. "You know that. I'd only need to push a little. You'd be gone. I don't even need a gun right now to kill you. Do you think it's pity that keeps me from doing it? Do you think you'd deserve any after what you've done?"

Dietrich made no reply. His lips parted only to take a breath, and then another, and another. He kept breathing slowly through trembling lips. In and out. Shuddering, thin breaths. He kept holding everything inside like he could cancel the feelings by keeping them locked away — but the thunder kept building, and the glass walls were becoming thinner and thinner.

Schuldig rejected even the semblance of sympathy with a disgusted shake of the head.

"To think that I almost trusted you," he whispered, his voice betraying a rainbow of emotions from repulsion, even loathing, to finally anger. "When you let me leave Rosenkreuz, I started to think maybe in your own fucked up way, you actually wanted to help me like you said." He narrowed his eyes, the celestial blue flaring with outrage. "But all you wanted was for me to let down my guard so you could murder me."

At this, Dietrich turned his head sharply and his eyes flashed open, wide, very wide. The thunder erupted in a crackling lightning that fizzed out with a despaired hiss. Several more tears fell down his cheeks as he shook his head. "No!" he objected, his voice distraught, urgent, forceful. He dragged in a deep breath, then hissed again, "No. No." And he might have said it a hundred times more, as many as it took to proclaim it for a fact.

The elder telepath meant it with his every cell, and it was not a lie. Only a few battered armaments held him together, but the armour did not hide anything as much as kept his mind from crumbling and disappearing into the whispers that always threatened a telepath's sanity, and so, for the first time in all this time they had known each other, Dietrich's shields were hanging wide open like a gate that had fallen off its hinges. Dietrich was not projecting as much as letting his thoughts out. Every bit of how much he meant his every word was like a scream in Schuldig's head.

But the genuineness of the denial did nothing to soothe Schuldig's rage.

"Oh no?" he hissed viciously, venomously like a snake. "Then why didn't you just _ask_ me to help you? Why the lying and the tricks?"

Dietrich's mouth snapped shut, he swallowed air a couple of times.

"Well?" Schuldig snarled. "What the hell were you going to do to me in that cell? Huh? What have you been doing my entire life if not fucking trying to kill me?"

Crack, crack, crack, creaked Dietrich's shields. His distress rattled the fissures, and the raging, thundering pain was like a roar inside him, commanding, demanding, needing Schuldig to believe him as he insisted, "I never tried to kill you." Dietrich's voice trembled. "Never."

Schuldig sat like a vulture watching him, ready to pick out his eyes, his tongue, every bit of soft flesh to dig into the best bits of everything Dietrich kept inside — he wanted the truth. His lips pulled to a grimace, his eyes were burning with hunger.

"Then tell me what you were trying to do," Schuldig demanded with the purring roll of a beast that was about to slaughter the mouse.

Dietrich could hold Schuldig's gaze no longer. His eyes fell, perhaps to seek for relief which they would never find. He kept searching the room, searching, reaching ever farther and farther, somewhere far away, far beyond and past the sunrise that bathed his expensive furniture and all the rest of his possessions — all the quiet, lifeless things that made up his life. He kept searching, searching for something that simply wasn't there.

Something that couldn't be there ever again. More tears fell, and with them, the last remnants of Dietrich's pride crumbled.

"All right," Dietrich whispered. His voice was hollow, his eyes vacant, his face a mask of a million yesterdays. His fingers crushed Schuldig's wrist. "I'll show you."

With that, something cracked open like a door splitting in half to let in the blinding light of day. The wall in between Schuldig and Dietrich dissolved and a flurry of memories broke into Schuldig's mind. Together, they fell through a series of images and voices, a transmission that contained so little emotional content that it might as well have been videotape.

Faces and names, places and spaces in the past — oft-denied yet too well remembered mirror images of keepsakes that had lost their true shape a long time ago.

_###_

_The head supervisor's dimly lit, expensively furnished private study was filled with books and the smell of burning candles. An old man sat behind a giant black desk, his fingers knit and his hands resting on the table, his thumbs tapping together slowly. The piercing blue eyes looked critical and displeased. The white bird on his shoulder kept its equally piercing eye fixed on the little boy standing in attention in front of the desk. _

_"You were meant for something specific, Adelbert," observed the man's strict voice. "You were made for a purpose."_

_The ten-year-old black-haired boy nodded. "Yes, mein Meister." He stood in attention in his grey uniform, his hands at his sides._

_The man behind the desk leaned back in his seat. "You were meant to be special," he drawled. "Your mother was the product of a branch cut from one of our most successful telepathic lineages. We have patiently bred the pure talents in this branch with suitable clairvoyant families. You..." The man tapped his thumbs together, his eyes scanning the boy from top to toes and back up again. "You were blessed with my own blood."_

_The boy gulped. "Yes, mein Meister," he whispered, because he knew that he was meant to acknowledge._

_"And what did you do with that blood that was given to you?" whispered the man. "How did you turn out?"_

_The boy straightened his shoulders, straining every inch of his small body to appear as big as possible. "I'm a pure talent just like my mother, mein Meister," he said with a defensive note._

_Slam! The boy jumped as the man's hand hit the desk surface. "You are just like your mother," he said sharply. "You are a telepath."_

_The boy's lower lip twitched and he dropped his eyes to the floor. The man behind the desk examined him for a long moment in silence before leaning forward and supporting his elbows to the desk._

_"Eyes to me, Ade," the man murmured. When the boy slowly lifted his gaze, the man frowned. "Grey. Not blue. Do you understand why that is a mark of your failure?"_

_The boy swallowed. "Because," he whispered, "blue eyes are the trademark of the precognitives that they tried to match with my mother's line." As soon as he had finished speaking, he frowned and jutted up his chin. "But it doesn't mean anything, mein Meister," he argued. "Maybe the eye colour isn't connected to the talent."_

_There was a long, long silence. Then the man shook his head slowly. "Maybe not, but you have been tested, Ade," he murmured. "You haven't a clairvoyant bone in you. You are a common telepath. We wanted a hybrid."_

_The boy kept swallowing. "You said I wasn't common," he whispered. "You said I could still impress the Elders."_

_"But you did not impress them." The blue colour in the man's eyes dissolved to reveal a pair of blind, staring white eyes. "I shall put it bluntly, Ade. We have seen through you. You are a failure, and the Elders have deemed it fit to remove you from the programme. You must learn to accept our decisions." He tapped the folder on the desk with his fingers. "This sort of inappropriate behaviour is not impressing anyone and it needs to stop. Do you understand, boy?"_

_The little boy squeezed his hands to fists at his sides. "Yes, Herr Amlisch." He bit his tongue so as not to say another word._

___###_

_A flurry of snowflakes danced in the dark night. The snow was beginning to pile on the window sill outside. Two men were seated under the window in comfortable armchairs, glasses in their hands and a bottle of vodka on the table in between them._

_The younger man's grey eyes gleamed hungrily in the candlelight. "It can be done, then, do you think?"_

_The older man pursed his lips. His dark eyes were lost somewhere far away, his attention lingering in the dancing snowflakes. "Possibly," he mused. "But not the way they go about it. From what you told me, they were trying to breed a hybrid talent for some purpose. That's a silly idea. Our powers come from inside us. Our minds shape the psychic energy that gives us our talents, not our genes. If they want a hybrid talent, they should build the soul, not the body."_

_The black-haired man tilted his head to the side. "But how can you change your soul?"_

_"Hmm. In time, our souls always expand," mused the older man and took a sip from his glass. "The strongest of us, such as the Elders or Herr Amlisch, are able to lengthen their own lives. Perhaps, if one is powerful enough, one may eventually learn to transcend the natural limitations of one's soul in other ways as well."_

_His young companion examined his vodka glass thoughtfully. "And how do you know if you're powerful enough?"_

_A faint smile flickered over the older man's lips. "I suppose you just have to wait and see," he said gently._

_"Mm, but Dmitri..." The young man laughed, lounging in his chair with a mischievous smile. "If you didn't want to wait?"_

_The older man paused. He closed his eyes slowly and lowered his glass into his lap. "You have much to learn of the future, Adelbert."_

_The young black-haired man rolled his eyes and downed another sip off his drink._

___###_

_"Let me in," the young man panted in between feverish kisses that tried to devour the older man's lips and suck in his every breath. "Let me... let me..."_

_The older man's hands hung on tight to the squirming body that was busily making its home in his lap. "Adelbert..."_

_"Ssh. Ssh. Together, Mitya?" whispered the sinful lips. A hungry hand tugged the older man's jacket. "Like this?" A low purr. "Let me in..."_

_"Adelbert," moaned the older man, and he meant it as an objection, but he was already falling, deeper, deeper into the dark embrace that awaited him. Guilt and terror quickly lost the struggle against pleasure and desire. Somewhere in the depth of darkness that took him, for a split second their thoughts were one._

_There was a shadow calling his name, and his thoughts whispered in return — Adelbert, Adelbert, Adelbert. Their shared desire glowed in the warmth of the sin that belonged to them both._

_"Yesss," hissed the black-haired demon and nipped his lower lip. "Yes, let me... let me in."_

_He knew it was wrong, but the shadow was so warm._

___###_

_The two men lay in bed, their feet tangled into the tumbled sheets and their bodies entwined in a complicated embrace. Several inappropriate slices of skin were visible here and there. The black-haired youth rested his head on his team leader's stomach, his fingers carelessly drawing circles on the precognitive's shapely stomach muscles._

_"So you think the team link could evolve into something... more." The young man's suggestion drifted lazily._

_A relaxed, satisfied, happy smile lingered on Dmitri's lips. His hand was lost in the black hair. He loved the way his fingers caught the sweaty strands. Like glue. They might never be pulled apart._

_Just like their minds. _

_"It is a theory," he murmured. His dark eyes welled with affection, as did his voice. "If you put two minds close enough... think about twins. They can be so close that they sense each other's strong feelings even at great distances. They have taught you to think of it as telepathy, but I believe it is more than that. Souls can become intertwined... more than two entities. If you make a conscious effort... I see no reason why it wouldn't be possible to use that connection to push past the bounds of minds and bodies. Create something more than either soul could be alone."_

_"Mm. But how?" muttered the young man's voice. It sounded sleepy. _

_Dmitri's fingers brushed over the young man's shoulder. His smile faded as he studied the beautiful curve of the young man's spine that eventually disappeared under the sheets. _

_"I suppose it would have to happen like this," he murmured. "You would have to link deep enough. Maybe you need a telepath."_

_There was a pause, one heartbeat, two, three, then... very quiet voice._

_"So... you think it'll ever happen between us?" _

_Dmitri gave it some thought. He should have reached inwards and outwards, he should have considered the future, but there was this warmth in the present time, there was this beautiful creature that had given him peace from his demons for this fleeting moment, and he wanted to lose not a single second._

_The answer was obvious, anyway._

_"Yes," he murmured. With a quiet chuckle, he closed his eyes. "When the time is right."_

_He was completely unaware of the fact that the grey crystal eyes were wide open and staring into the darkness with a famished expression._

___###_

_"Mitya," he whispered feverishly, struggling desperately to stabilise the shattering construction around him._

_There was nothing to hold on to. Only a vast emptiness surrounded him. His partner's mind was splintering, and the tighter he held on, the smaller the remaining pieces became. Moaning, he reached deeper and deeper, flinging himself blindly into the darkness where the glistening shards were falling endlessly._

_"Mitya..." he sobbed. "Don't leave me."_

_But the calm presence that had kept him anchored was already gone. There was only the echo of a scream that might never stop reverberating through his bones. He clung to the limp body, whispering his partner's name over and over again, tears streaming down his face to wet the sunken, horrified features of the man lying under him._

_"Come back, Mitya," he gasped. "Mitya. Come back. Mitya. Mitya."_

___###_

_"I know what went wrong." The telepath's voice was trembling._

_There was no answer from the armchair. Adelbert's mouth was hanging slightly open, his fingers clung to the older man's trouser legs. He was sitting on his knees in between Dmitri's feet._

_"You were simply too weak." The telepath's halting words dropped from his lips methodically, like a practised speech without any emotion. "It could have worked, but you weren't strong enough. That's why it went wrong. And then you fought me and you made it worse. You should have given yourself up. You should have..." His voice broke down and he drew in a trembling breath._

_There was no response from the armchair. Dmitri's sunken features remained flaccid, his pallid skin remained pasty, and his dark eyes remained as silent as the mind behind them._

___###_

_"I have a plan." The dark shadow hovering in the darkness near the bookshelf had the shape of a man but the face of a devil. _

_Dmitri's soulless eyes stared right through it. It was years since they had last had a conversation that involved any other voice than the telepath's drawling cold one._

_"Oh, you *are* such a pill, Dmitri. I thought you'd be excited. Especially since I've also figured out how to fix our little..." With a flourish, the dark shadow gestured in the air between them. "Situation."_

_Dmitri stood with his hands behind his back, his face expressionless._

_"I shall need a vessel, Dmitri," the dark shadow went on. "Another telepath. Someone I can use as a channel. Ah!" He waved his hand. "I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner. The Elders are doing the same thing. I understand it now. I was meant to be their vessel. They dropped me out of the project because I turned out to be a..." a sneer curled the young man's upper lip and he spat out the words derisively, "common telepath!" He shook his head angrily. "They think they need a hybrid or a special talent of some kind. But they're wrong! They had what they needed all along! All we really need is a pure talent, someone who can become one with other talents."_

_Dmitri's dark eyes came to life — they started to grow wide with horror as the plan unfolded in his mind, spilling directly into his side of the link. He saw a hoard of young men and women, their eyes vacant and empty. He saw his partner's smiling figure standing beside them._

_The shadow across the room was looking at the same imaginary future, but it did not find it as terrifying. "Oh Dmitri!" He sounded hungry. "It'll be just like you envisioned!"_

_The dark eyes welled with tears. Dmitri shook his head. "I envisioned a team that could become powerful by working together." He choked. "Not a mindless machine for you to use in order to play God."_

_The shadow dismissed him with a wave of his hand. "You suggest I would build a team and ask them for their loyalty? Hah!" He shook his head. "Don't be a fool, Dmitri. You can never trust people."_

_Tears streamed down Dmitri's cheeks. "Adelbert..." He looked and he looked, but he simply could find no trace of the warm creature he had once held so close._

_"Hush, hush, Dmitri, it won't harm them," murmured the smooth voice of the demon. "I'll release them once I'm done. Just like I'll release you." The voice softened. "You believe me, don't you? Now that our minds are so close, you can tell if I'm lying."_

_Footsteps crossed the floor. Dmitri did not move. He stared at the pale face that emerged from the shadows. The grey eyes were suddenly as gentle and young as they had once been. The demon's disguise was perfect. Almost like it could be that same boy he had loved so well._

_Almost._

_The demon leaned in to touch Dmitri's tight-pressed lips with his fingertips. "I know how to free you," he whispered. "I'll do it, if you help me."_

_Dmitri blinked. More tears fell. "But at what cost, Adelbert?" he whispered. Behind his back, his fingers clenched to hold tighter to his wrist._

_The young man's lips twisted to a pout, then to a snarl. The semblance of a young affectionate creature faded away. An ugly sneer split the demon's pale face and the dark, sulking shadow turned to the window._

_"Start the search, Dmitri," whispered the cold, soulless voice. "And don't disappoint me this time."_

_Dmitri closed his eyes. He held in tears that might never be released._

___###_

_A black-haired male figure in a black uniform stood in front of a large window, staring into the cell on the other side. There was a small red-haired boy sitting in the corner of the white cell, his arms draped around his knees, his bright blue eyes staring vacantly into the distance. Another black uniform approached from behind, sliding through the shadows noiselessly._

_Dmitri stopped behind the black-haired man. He studied his partner's figure carefully. "You were gone a long time. For a moment, I thought..." His voice drifted away._

_"I am fine." The sullen figure of the head supervisor of Rosenkreuz frowned. "They almost killed him," he whispered._

_Dmitri let out a quiet sigh. "You remember Herr Amlisch recommended his termination."_

_The grey eyes flashed. "The boy will be fine!" snapped the telepath moodily. "I'll find a way to construct a functional mind. He'll be fine."_

_Dmitri's dark eyes drifted over the harsh lines of Adelbert's defiant posture and lingered. Little by little, his expression softened. The precognitive was not in control of their link, but he was able to use it easily to transmit ideas. Every single one of his thoughts dripped over to the telepath's side. The grey eyes flicked in Dmitri's direction._

_"Don't be a fool, Dmitri. I do not have 'feelings' for the boy."_

_"Mm." Dmitri's eyes were more affectionate than they had been in years. "But he reminds you of something."_

_With his lips pursed, the telepath continued to stare at the boy. Dmitri passed his hand over his partner's shoulder._

_"Perhaps you are reconsidering the plan," the precognitive suggested hopefully._

_A grunt chastised him for the misplaced optimism. The smile on Dmitri's lips faltered._

_"But wouldn't it be easier to seek his cooperation?" he insisted._

_"I won't need to seek his cooperation. I shall simply take it."_

_"Against his will?"_

_"If I must." The telepath's voice was as harsh as the look in his eyes._

_"But he might serve you willingly. They all might."_

_"Might?" Adelbert scoffed. _

_"You have played with people's affections before," Dmitri pointed out. He held on his partner's shoulder tighter. His dry voice caught a sharper note. "You played with my heart most successfully."_

_The telepath snorted. "You suggest I give them the power to overthrow the Elders and then simply *trust* them to serve me?"_

_Dmitri heaved a sigh. "Must it always be about masters and servants?"_

_Adelbert waved it off as though he never heard a word. "You know I want more than my freedom," he said. "And you forget, Dmitri, I know everything there is to know about hunger. I know what it's like to want to be more than what you are. Their hearts may grow to want more. They might turn against me."_

_"Or they might not," Dmitri pointed out forcefully. "If you know as much about hunger as you claim, you know what it is like for a human heart to desire something so much that they may give up their life for only a fleeting second of the fulfilment of their dreams. If you inspired those feelings in them, wouldn't they offer you their friendship willingly? Isn't it worth it to at least try?"_

_The grey eyes turned very slowly to face the precognitive. He cocked one demanding eyebrow. "Is it?"_

_Dmitri's lower lip fluttered, then pressed tight against the upper lip. A rigid line informed Adelbert of everything that the precognitive held inside. The telepath watched and wondered that the hurt could still stir this ugly feeling inside him. Angrily, he pushed Dmitri back several steps._

_"You," he hissed. "Your pathetic feelings bind us both! It's your fault I can't break the link between us. You hang on like a leech! And you think I want *more* of this sickness?"_

_Dmitri shook his head slowly, a sad look in his dark eyes. "I think you want it so much that you're afraid of what a little bit of affection could do to you," he returned. "You are afraid of what it would do to you if you walked into that cell right now and hugged that boy and told him that you understand how he feels. You are afraid of sharing yourself, Adelbert, because you are worried that he is going to turn you down." He held on tighter to his partner's shoulder. "You are afraid of letting anyone have that kind of power over you."_

_The grey eyes flashed. "If I'm afraid, I have a good reason!" the telepath snapped. "You proved it to me yourself!"_

_Dmitri froze. His face fell. Somewhere inside, a guilty conscience weighed heavy on his heart. The past that they had never talked about hung unspoken between them. The telepath's lips twisted to an ugly grimace. Rage built up from the pit of his stomach, rising up, up, higher to his lungs, stopped his breathing._

_"That's right," Adelbert hissed. "You know exactly what I'm talking about. You stole my future, and then you *dared* to try to make me love you!"_

_Dmitri shook his head, but everything inside him was sinking, sinking into the dark place that sucked in his soul like a vacuum. The merciless telepathic grip of his heart and soul and mind would let him give nothing but the truth._

_»It's what I was required to do. They assigned me as your keeper.»_

_Adelbert dismissed his useless excuses and explanations with a grunt. "A man always has a choice," he whispered. "Isn't that what you taught me?" He turned back to the window. _

_Dmitri's fingers contracted on the telepath's shoulder. He opened his mouth, but his partner heard all his words long before they were uttered and dismissed them just as quickly._

_"We are done, Dmitri," he declared. He swept Dmitri's hand off with a violent motion. "There's nothing more to say." _

_"So you will use him," Dmitri whispered. "Just like they used you."_

_The grey eyes scowled at the small, red-haired figure. "No. Not like they used me. Not like you used me. When he has served his purpose, I will show him the respect no one ever showed me. I shall let him choose his future."_

_"If he survives."_

_"Which one of us is the telepath?" Adelbert crossed his arms over his chest. "He will survive."_

_Dmitri's scepticism hung in the air. _

_"You have no visions to back up your concerns."_

_The dark eyes fell to the floor. "No." Dmitri's expression hardened. "Not yet."_

_A shadow passed over Adelbert's face. "Keep your eyes in the horizon, Dmitri," the telepath said quietly. The grey eyes kept staring at the bundle of red-orange hair._

_Dmitri turned slowly to look at that same splash of colour in the white cell. Sadness welled in his dark eyes. Neither of them said another word._

___###_

As the stream of images and voices faded out, Schuldig blinked rapidly. Though he vaguely recognised that the flood of input from Dietrich's mind was gone, it took a while to shake himself loose of the memories. Dietrich kept his eyes closed. His face was washed with tears, his fist trembled on the tear-stained pillow. His other hand was holding so tight to Schuldig's wrist that his knuckles were white. His entire body was shuddering.

When reality started to come back into focus, Schuldig dropped his eyes on the broken man. He was suspended in a strange silence for several seconds, trying to work through the criss-crossing emotions that shook him, struggling to figure out which ones were Dietrich's and which ones were his own — disappointment, grief, pain, regret.

In the end, Schuldig found himself from anger.

"Am I supposed to feel sorry for you now?" he spat. "Poor little Adelbert, didn't dare to love because nobody loved him?" His mouth twisted to an outraged snarl. "You're nothing but a fucking coward."

Dietrich's lips twisted, he screwed his eyes shut tighter. Disappointment shot through him like a giant cold weight dropped at the pit of his stomach. His entire body tensed as though it had been hit. He choked out a barely audible sob.

"What's that?" Schuldig demanded. He yanked his hand free from Dietrich's grip, sickened that the revolting beast would as much as touch him, let alone grasp him so tight.

The elder telepath's hold of Schuldig's wrist slipped easily, his every limb seemed to lose all strength, and the cold weight at the pit of his stomach was spreading fast to swallow his entire being. Nausea swelled between the two telepaths like sludgy oil spilling back and forth between two overflowing cups.

Schuldig raised his brows in mock inquiry, his voice dripped with venom. "Do you really expect that this bullshit sob story is going to make me forgive you?"

Dietrich pressed his fist against his stomach, like it might help him hold in the ugly oozing cold that made him want to vomit. "I don't..." his voice was shaking, "...expect anything... from you."

A cold smile rippled off Schuldig's lips. "No?" he asked. "That'd be the first."

Dietrich hugged his own body with one trembling arm. Schuldig was thinking about everything Dietrich had done to him. He studied the man's tormented form and listened to everything swelling behind Dietrich's strained face. The barely restrained thunder inside Dietrich had been unleashed. All his defences were down, his armour broken. Dietrich was bleeding like a mortally wounded animal in a lethal trap. Normally his mind was strong like a steel ball, now — it might crack like an egg shell. Here, at last, was Schuldig's opportunity to make his former master pay for every hurt and every injustice he had suffered at Dietrich's hand.

But...

This was too easy. Schuldig's face twisted to a displeased pout. His eyes swept over the broken figure. Dietrich wasn't putting up a fight, wasn't even trying to recover his shields. He was just lying there, passive, his cheeks wet and his every limb shaking — waiting for execution.

Maybe inviting it.

Oh, no. No, no. The man wasn't going to get off so easy.

"Was that tale of woe supposed to be your excuse?" Schuldig scoffed. "All right. I'll believe that the little kid whose daddy was mean to him turned into a giant jerk because he was trying to prove something to everyone. I'll even give you the benefit of the doubt and believe that you had a good reason to think that Herr Komarov had betrayed you somewhere along the way — I've worked with a precog, I know how they get when they want you to live your life their way. But you know what I don't believe?" Schuldig gave an excruciatingly long, meaningful, ominous pause. His voice lowered to a slithering hiss. "I don't believe you deserve to be excused for what you've done."

Dietrich didn't open his eyes. He didn't move. For a long moment, he even stopped breathing. With a vengeful half-smile on his lips, Schuldig leaned in, closer, closer, like the shadow of a beast that's cornered its prey. Gently, ever so gently, his hand slid over Dietrich's shoulder and buried itself in Dietrich's hair. His fingers tangled with the long strands, imitating to perfection Komarov's oft-repeated routine. A shiver passed through Dietrich's body, and Schuldig dipped deeper to trigger a memory, a fond, familiar warmth that could spread over him and hold him. He said not a word. Only his talent danced in slow motion in the darkness, filling Dietrich's senses with the tantalising thought of Komarov's pervasive presence.

The vaguely understood shape of a familiar shadow hovering over Dietrich's shaking form took shape and turned into imaginary reality. Dietrich's hand twitched instinctively to search for the ghost — and Schuldig delighted in the pain running deep through the disappointment that shook Dietrich's very soul as the man's hand went through thin air.

"That's right," Schuldig whispered pleasantly. "He's not there to make it all better anymore."

Dietrich's lungs dropped to the pit of his stomach. Schuldig's unearthly blue eyes gleaming with vengeance, he leaned closer, ever closer, bringing his lips to Dietrich's ear. His mouth lingered, breathing warmth, every exhale a reminder of everything Dietrich had lost.

"Haven't you been excusing yourself long enough?" Schuldig's every word dropped like an icicle, crashing right into Dietrich's shuddering shields, threatening to smash them. "Haven't you spent enough fucking time making other people take responsibility for your crimes?" He bared his teeth with a hiss. "Jesus Christ! You broke Herr Komarov, and you convinced yourself that it was _his_ fault. I don't even have the words to tell you how fucked up that is!"

Dietrich's body shrank, like it might curl up into a ball, but even now, he was fighting the urge, fighting to keep whatever was left of his pride, and perhaps something even more important than pride. Schuldig heard the faint echo of an argument that had been repeated so many times that it had become an automated response — _not my fault, not my fault, not my fault_ — a defence mechanism, a survival method, the mantra was what kept Dietrich's soul still standing.

Schuldig only needed to drop in a single vivid image of a pair of dark, sad eyes to break the mantra and drive Dietrich into a fit of shaky sobs.

_»__Mitya...__»_ A useless whisper, one that Dietrich didn't expect to be answered ever again, yet had to repeat, over and over again for the fool's hope that somehow, he might hear a response. _»__Mitya... Mitya...__»_ More and more sobs broke through Dietrich's tight pursed lips.

Schuldig shook his head, feigning pity that was but a mask for his vengeful disdain. He let the long strands of hair slip through his fingers. He watched them fall and coil down Dietrich's bare chest.

"You killed him," Schuldig mused conversationally. "You realise that, right? We were both there when he left the link. Shall I remind you? He wanted to get rid of you so much that he was willing to fucking die. I bet he didn't believe for one second that you'd even blink. Isn't that what you kept telling him? That you wanted nothing to do with him and his..." Schuldig's face twisted to a sneer. "...pathetic feelings."

Dietrich whimpered. Schuldig tracked a loving finger over Dietrich's lips only to feel how they trembled with the barely suppressed sobs. Keen blue eyes watched every twitch of Dietrich's facial muscles, his telepathic tongue lapping up the pain that welled in Dietrich's mind.

Schuldig clicked his tongue. "Tsk! Maybe if you'd treated him better? Maybe he'd have chosen differently. Hmm?" With a sudden motion, he grabbed a fistful of Dietrich's hair and yanked the man's head to an uncomfortable position, only to see his pain-ridden face better. Schuldig bared his teeth with the hiss, "Maybe if you'd treated us all better, we'd have chosen differently!"

The guilt and the regret were like living creatures crawling inside Dietrich's every cell, making him want to squirm, but some remaining bit of self-restraint kept him straining against the urge. Schuldig took his time examining every single tense, quivering muscle. He took his time inspecting every corner of Dietrich's mind for a flicker or a shiver or a reflection of deception, anything to indicate that any part of this suffering wasn't real.

Ah, but it was. It was so real that Schuldig could taste it on his tongue, he could feel it in every part of his being. The thunder was loose, it was raging in Schuldig's head, tearing him up higher and higher like a hurricane might rip trees right off the ground, roots and all. He bared his teeth with an inhuman, gleeful leer that gave his face the shape of a grinning gargoyle.

Schuldig licked his lips. Yes, this was how he wanted the man — helpless and teetering on the edge of lunacy. Schuldig would only need to put a weapon in his hand and tell him to do the right thing once in his life. He caught the idea of the gun Dietrich kept in his bedside drawer. It would be perfect, to end his life with the very weapon that had brought him such pleasure.

It wasn't logic or concerns of the future that stopped Schuldig. Future be fucked, ah, but Schuldig's head was spinning with the possibilities of a far more sinister fate than mere death. Death would give Dietrich closure and satisfaction. Why, it would be no punishment at all! Schuldig much rather that Dietrich lived with his sins. He wanted the man to breathe deep the stench of all the loathsome, vile things he had done, and writhe in agony every night, longing to end it but just barely holding back. It needed to be Dietrich himself who delivered the just punishment.

To accomplish that, Schuldig needed to give the man hope. Hope, like the elusive promises and the vague half-seen futures that had haunted Schuldig's days at Rosenkreuz. Hope, like the flicker of a firefly in the night that danced a deathly tango with the torchlight, only to burn in the flames again and again.

Again and again, Schuldig wanted to take Dietrich through hell, let his head up above the surface for air only long enough to make sure he wouldn't drown when he pulled him back under again.

And so, the redhead tilted his head to the side and murmured, "Do you think that soft-hearted precognitive of yours would ever forgive you? Hmm? If you gave him his life back?"

Dietrich reacted with a sharp jerk, his eyes flew wide open and he gasped, groping for a hold of Schuldig's uniform with both hands. "Is it..." His eyelids fluttered, sending delicious tears running down his face. "Is it possible?" he croaked. "Did you... hear him? Is he still there?" His voice was shaking and breaking, but his eyes were filled with a fever Schuldig had never seen before. To call it hope would have been like mistaking a forest fire for a candle flame — this was more than hope, better than hope, this was desire mixing with the intoxicating taste of _need_.

With all his being, Dietrich wanted to believe it was true.

Schuldig's mouth curved to a cruel, cold smile. "You're going to need me, if you ever want to retrieve him," he said, his voice smooth like silk. "I was there when the link broke. I've got some residue... right here." He tapped his temple with two fingers. His voice lowered to a husky hiss, "Maybe even more than mere residue."

Dietrich swallowed several times. Schuldig revelled in the starved longing that ripped apart Dietrich's insides. Somewhere deep in there, the elder telepath was begging, but he bit back the words. Schuldig let out a sultry laugh. He leaned in slowly, his lips parting to inhale the sweet scent of his triumph. Dietrich lay very quiet, very still, as Schuldig touched his forehead with his lips. He left a warm kiss in between Dietrich's eyes like he might have kissed a favourite pet, then grabbed the man's wrists.

"Only I can put you back together," he whispered. "Remember that, mein Herr."

With that, Schuldig forced Dietrich's hands down and tossed them off of him like garbage that he was done and over with. He started to crawl off the bed. Dietrich's tear-filled eyes watched him all the way to the edge of the bed. Schuldig got up on his feet, straightened his back and held his head high. In the black uniform, he was like a dark monster standing near the bed, his hair ablaze with the colours of sunrise. His critical eyes passed over Dietrich's messy figure.

"I'm starving," Schuldig said matter-of-factly. "I'm going to order some food. In the meantime, I suggest you start thinking about how you're going to repay me for my help."

With that, he began to saunter out of the room with the languid, easy steps of a perfectly satisfied, well-fed predator. He made it all the way to the door before there was a single word or a single fluctuation in the telepathic energies in the room. But when his hand touched the handle, he heard a shivering inhale, and then a voice.

"Schuldig?" whispered Dietrich.

Schuldig frowned at him from over his shoulder. His talent prompted the man to go on. Dietrich sat up on his bed. He looked lost and deplorable with his messy hair and tear-streaked face. Schuldig could sense how difficult it was for the man to swallow the lump in his throat, and just then, he suddenly knew what Dietrich was about to say, too. He might have spared him the trouble, but no, oh no — never. He had waited for years to hear this.

Schuldig jutted up his chin and _demanded_ that the man say it out loud, if he really meant it.

Dietrich was not able to hold eye contact. He stuck his fists in his armpits and stared at the sheets. His whisper was only just barely audible enough to reach all the way to the door. "Will you ever forgive me?"

The corners of Schuldig's mouth twitched. He struggled to keep the triumphant leer off his face. With a pointed silence, he turned the handle.

"It sucks not having your precog around to tell you that, huh?" he quipped and stepped out of the door.

Dietrich closed his eyes at the sound of the slamming door. He let his head hang down lower, lower, and ever lower until his forehead touched the sheets. He shuddered again, and again — and then his shoulders started to shake.

"Mitya," he whimpered, "please... come back."

Only silence answered.


	23. Faithfully Yours

**- MINDS -**

**Chapter Eighteen  
:: faithfully yours ::**

Crawford had never dragged his feet in his life. It had not been acceptable, neither as a child at home nor as a teen at Rosenkreuz, and certainly not as a young ambitious agent out on the field. Even less as the driven, motivated leader of team Schwarz. On occasion, he might have walked reluctantly to a meeting or taken a little longer than necessary getting out the door for a mission, but he had never, ever dragged his feet.

Yet "dragging his feet" was really the only phrase that adequately described the slow crawl with which Crawford approached the room at the end of the hallway. He had tracked these same steps many times as a youngling at Rosenkreuz. With a warm steady hand holding his shoulder, he had walked down this hallway to that door many, many times.

He wasn't headed to find Farfarello. Not yet. As much as he needed to put his team back together, he had to satisfy a different need first. This might be his only chance to visit Komarov's private quarters undisturbed and unsupervised. Both Dietrich and Schuldig were otherwise engaged and Komarov's death had not yet become public knowledge. As far as anybody knew, he might have been on his way to meet his former mentor. It certainly seemed legitimate enough, given that he seemed to have access to areas that were strictly invitation-only.

Crawford had no business assuming that he had clearance to the precognitive department, let alone to Komarov's private quarters. He had not asked Schuldig to arrange anything, because he did not want the telepath to know he was coming here. Logic dictated that he could not expect the guards to wave him past without as much as asking for identification. Yet they did — and though he had no reason to anticipate it, he was not surprised. It wasn't exactly a vision that assured him that he would have the necessary clearance in place. It was more of a hunch, and Crawford always followed his hunches, especially when they were complemented by an urge and a knowing feeling like this.

Still. Despite the urge and the knowing, Crawford was moving more slowly the closer to Komarov's quarters he got. His mouth was dry by the time he reached the wooden door that didn't quite belong in the white-washed wall. His hand stalled on the handle. In his mind's eye, he was able to imagine every detail of the room on the other side of that door to the point that he couldn't tell whether he was using his newly discovered talent for seeing without eyes, or simply drawing the picture from memory. Komarov's private quarters were an anomaly in the otherwise spacious facilities of the precognitive department. The head of the precognitive department kept his rooms crowded with books, and the sitting room was always dusty and dimly lit. As a child, Crawford had never understood why Komarov's quarters always looked so messy. Even after he had learned of the bond that kept Komarov trapped under the scrutiny of his partner's ever-ravenous cruel mind, he had felt reluctant to think that Komarov had simply been too depressed to tend to the cleanliness of his quarters, so he had still been confused.

But now. Perhaps Crawford understood now. Perhaps he understood every single one of his mentor's actions — they were nothing but pieces of a puzzle in a long continuum of choices that the man had made in order to bring about this very future. He screwed his eyes shut. He didn't know exactly what had pulled him here nor what exactly to expect, but he knew that whatever it was that waited for him in that room on the other side of this door was all for his benefit. Crawford was convinced that the state of disarray in Komarov's rooms was intended to hide something, just like everything else Komarov had ever done to keep Dietrich — and Crawford — from realising his true plan.

There were so many questions left unanswered, so much of future that Crawford had not yet foreseen but that Komarov must have known to anticipate. Crawford needed more information to navigate the murky waters of the ugly mess Komarov had left in his hands. There must be a clue or two waiting for him behind this door. Crawford was the key pawn in the painful game Komarov had played with Dietrich. Both of the older men had been interested in using him in their own ways. He was a weapon in the war those two had waged with one another, though Dietrich had been mistaken over the final purpose and objective of Komarov's strategy. He had worked with the false assumption that Komarov wanted to survive.

Crawford had worked with the same assumption. It was still difficult to let go of the idea. Still difficult not to hope that somehow, Crawford might yet be surprised and discover that his mentor had found a way to cheat the apparent final result of the game.

The crushing grief battled that hope. Crawford gave a passing thought to the body that was now locked away in the laboratories somewhere, stuffed into some kind of a container that would keep it from degenerating. He wondered if Dietrich would ever let it go, or would he keep Komarov's remains frozen and waiting forever, just like he had kept the man's mind prisoner? The macabre idea perturbed Crawford. Komarov's body was dead, and no one could bring life to what was dead. He had never heard of such a power. Crawford didn't dare to believe that even a piece of Komarov's mind might have remained, not after what the man had said as he had drawn his last breath.

Yet... even in the dark desolate caverns of Crawford's heart, some hope persisted. Schuldig had come back to him. Two men as intertwined as Komarov and Dietrich — could their separation ever really be final? Could some part of a soul transcend death in another form, even if Komarov's body was irretrievably gone? Had Komarov known of a way?

And if he had, had he left a clue pertaining to that way somewhere in here, into the chaotic confines of his quarters? Was that why Crawford's instincts had led him here, was that why Komarov had made sure that he had access? There were so many questions — and all the answers were waiting for him behind this door.

Crawford took a deep breath. With the exhale, he turned the handle and let the door swing open. He opened his eyes. The familiar shapes greeted him from the darkness. There was the sound of the grandfather clock in the corner. There was the lonely armchair by the window, and there was the coffee table. The first rays of morning light streamed in from the window, glistening on the ornamental teapot sitting on the coffee table. As if in a dream, Crawford stepped into the room. He didn't bother flicking on the lights. He kicked the door closed behind him.

Except for the reassuring tick-tock-tick-tock of the grandfather clock, it was as silent as in a tomb. The metaphor was perfect. Komarov had haunted this tomb for years. How long had the man really known that he would die? Had he seen his own death the moment he had looked at Crawford in the eyes for the first time?

Longer? For how long?

Had Komarov walked across this floor over to that armchair by the window, told the little boy to sit down and focus on the candle flame on the coffee table — and all along known that that little boy would one day kill him?

How could a man be so gentle and so patient with his murderer?

Crawford let out another long breath. Murderer. The word had never had such an effect on Crawford. He knew that he wasn't really Komarov's murderer — that title belonged to another man, the one for whose sake Komarov had made all these choices — but Crawford still remembered the weight of the knife and the impulse that had come from inside him, and he remembered Komarov's words.

_"You will kill me."_

Crawford may not have taken Komarov's life willingly, but he had taken it.

A nervous ripple through Crawford's muscles became a shudder that drove him on the move. With a haunted expression on his face, he flitted across the floor, searching for signs that Komarov might have left him a message. He went to the coffee table first. There was nothing obvious visible anywhere. No note on the table. Only the teapot and two cups on opposite sides of the table. Crawford tested the porcelain surface of the teapot. Cold. The back of his fingers slid on the smooth surface. He opened the teapot and glanced inside. Halfway full of tea.

Crawford's gaze swept across the table. One of the cups had traces of tea, the other was clean. The clean cup was sitting very lonely at the other end of the coffee table, where there was no seat. The lack of another armchair was normal. Sometimes — very rarely — Komarov brought an extra armchair into the room. Once or twice, Crawford had received the luxury of being offered a seat by the coffee table, but as a child, he had been required to sit on the floor during his meditation exercises in Komarov's rooms.

What of last night? Had Komarov sat with someone? If so, why was there no chair, and why was the cup empty? Had his companion refused to drink the tea? Had Komarov already moved the armchair but neglected to clean away the pot and the cups? Why?

Had he perhaps simply sipped tea one last time with the ghosts of the past?

_Your telepath... you need to know... Adelbert was much like him once._

Crawford wondered how many parallels there were. Though Crawford and Schuldig had never enjoyed tea together, they had often sat together discussing missions over an evening cap, and they had frequently went over their plans over breakfast. Had it once been like that with Komarov and his telepath, too? Crawford's eye lingered with the clean, empty teacup. Where had Komarov's mind moved during what he had known would be his last night? Had his mind been swimming with memories, or had he simply worked on distracting his partner from noticing that anything was wrong?

Crawford might never know. With a quiet shake of the head, he turned from the coffee table and scanned the room. He couldn't find anything out of place. Nothing out of the ordinary. It was almost as though nothing had even changed since the last time he had been here.

He frowned. That couldn't be right. Surely, Komarov had changed something here since Crawford had last visited.

Crawford took a deep breath and tried to block the past from his mind. If he wanted to make sure his talent wasn't misbehaving and painting the picture from his memories instead of reproducing the reality, he shouldn't focus on what he remembered. He should be open and sensitive to the present moment.

Several deep breaths later, he was convinced that he was standing in the reality instead of a figment of his haunted imagination. He took another slow look around. If Komarov had left him clues, he must have left them in this room. This was the only room in his private quarters that Crawford had ever frequented. This was where he could expect Crawford to notice an alteration, if one existed.

He could detect none. Frustrating. There had to be something here. Komarov must have left him something, and he couldn't expect Crawford to tear through the entire room trying to find it.

And so he began to pace calmly towards the bookshelves that lined the walls. There was no space for paintings in the sitting room. It was all books, books, books. A massive desk lurked in the shadows in between couple of the shelves. Crawford stopped in front of it. Again, no note. The surface was clean, no dust, nothing. Not even any books lay forgotten on the desk. Crawford scanned the surface but he couldn't spot any seams — it did not seem like there might be a computer inserted into the massive desk like there was in the ebony desk in Dietrich's private study.

It didn't feel right to nose through Komarov's private affairs, but dead men do not require privacy, and there seemed to be little point in discretion anymore. Crawford leaned in and slowly pulled open one of the drawers. To his surprise, it was empty. With a frown, he went through the rest of the drawers and discovered them all to be empty.

Curious.

Crawford went as far as to peek under each drawer to check that nothing had been taped on the underside, and he even checked for possible false bottoms and secret compartments, but he simply could not find a thing. He straightened his back and stared at the desk with a slight frown. It's as if this desk had never really been used for anything.

As he made another slow round, he started taking note of just precisely how undisturbed the lines of books looked on the shelves. There was a fair bit of dust, much more than he remembered ever seeing, as though the books had not been touched in weeks, maybe months. He began to wonder if it wasn't just a trick of the mind that nothing in the room had been changed. He stopped in front of the shelf where one book was clearly missing from the otherwise neatly arranged row. He stared at the gap. Komarov had never rearranged the books or put another book in the place of the one he had given Crawford many years ago.

A chill travelled up and down Crawford's spine. He began to get the feeling that Komarov had never truly _lived_ here.

Crawford was standing in a mausoleum.

He kept walking, scanning the rows of books, trying to spot one that wasn't covered in dust, something, anything out of place, or even just a sign that Komarov had touched something. Anything.

But no.

Finally, he stopped in front of the door half-hidden in between the bookshelves. Komarov's bedroom was on the other side. It was foreign territory for Crawford. He had visited the room once, and not for the reasons many of his fellow students might have expected, given the all-too-usual reasons for students to be called to the private chambers of the teachers.

They were fools if they assumed that a man like Komarov would take advantage of a child in that manner.

Crawford tested the handle. The door was not locked. A soft click, and it swung open. Crawford flicked on the light and peered inside. There was a single-sleeper bed, a bedside table, some more bookshelves, a large eye-catching painting depicting the wintry rooftops of Moscow, and an armchair in the middle of the room. Crawford's eyes darted around the room. He had only vague recollections of what the room looked like, his visit there had been brief and he had been preoccupied with the business at hand, which had involved a sick young telepath with red hair. His eyes lingered with the bed, where Schuldig had slept. He had waited by the telepath's bedside, patiently tending to the semi-unconscious creature.

Crawford had a history of sitting by the red-haired telepath's bedside, waiting for him to wake. How many times had he done it?

He tore his eyes off the bed and shook his mind loose from the memories. He stepped into the room. Here, the books were not dusty and undisturbed. Some of them were lying in piles on the shelves, others were leaning on one another. These books were clearly frequently used. Crawford examined the rows curiously. The titles appeared to be works of fiction. He recognised several of them — poetry. The names looked mostly European, and many of them were too obscure for Crawford to recognise. There was a big section of Russian works, and every single book looked old.

He wasn't really surprised. Komarov had always appeared cultured, and he had frequently encouraged Crawford to pick up literature to exercise his mind.

Crawford's gaze swept around the shelves, then landed on the lonely armchair sitting in the middle of the room, placed so that it faced the painting on the wall. It was the same one Crawford had occasionally seen in the sitting room. In all these years, he had not figured out why Komarov occasionally bothered to drag the armchair from one room to the other instead of acquiring two separate armchairs. It seemed particularly puzzling because the presence of the armchair in this room suggested that Komarov liked to sit in his bedroom while reading the books he kept here. Why would he want to sacrifice personal comfort and haul it into the sitting room for brief visits?

And why, why was there an empty teacup on the coffee table in the other room now, given that the armchair was here?

Crawford approached the armchair. If it hadn't been for the extra teacup on the table in the other room, he might not have recalled the odd behaviour of this armchair. Was the teacup a clue, then? Was he supposed to find something here? He had wanted to discover something out of the ordinary, but while experience indicated that it was quite common for Komarov to switch the placement of this particular armchair from one room to the other, perhaps there was something that Crawford was supposed to pay attention to in the old mystery.

The worn-out old thing looked perfectly innocent and exactly as homely and humble as Crawford remembered it. Like so many other things here, it begged many questions because the head of the precognitive department surely could afford something better. Crawford could detect no cuts and no seams, nothing that would indicate the existence of hidden secrets within the cushions. He walked around the chair, circled it a couple of times, yet he could find nothing that should attract his attention. Was he supposed to tear open the fabric? But that didn't fit Komarov's style. It would leave a mess and give away that someone had been here snooping.

Crawford stopped to stand in front of the armchair and glanced from over his shoulder to the painting that hung on the wall directly across, then flicked his eyes towards the piece of furniture again. He mused on the mystery for a moment, then spun on his heels and took a seat. He was now facing the oil painting directly. He let his eyes rest in the details of the dark, wintry landscape.

Snow was falling down from an ominous night sky. The view across the city showed very little detail of the houses themselves, the attention was quickly drawn to the snow-covered rooftops, and in particular to the tell-tale domes in the distance that immediately placed the view into Moscow. Unlike Crawford would expect, the painting focused on the sky more than the houses. The angle suggested that it had been drawn from a window somewhere high — or, as Crawford realised upon closer inspection, off a rooftop. He could see a stripe of white snowy surface at the bottom of the painting.

It was not a bad painting, the work was skilled enough, but the amount of dark sky was disturbing and the composition slightly awkward. Crawford could not believe it would be a particularly pricey work of art, and furthermore he didn't quite understand why Komarov would enjoy watching it. If he missed Russia — and the city that could very well have been his former home for all Crawford knew — surely he could have found prettier paintings? What was so special about this one?

Curious now, Crawford got up on his feet and approached the painting, trying to spot the artist's signature. To his surprise, he could find none. Odd. With a frown, he picked up the frame and took a peek on the backside of the painting, just in case he might find some notes at least.

He spotted something white and lumpy. His heart leaped in his chest and he hurried to pick the painting off the wall. With eager, quick hands, Crawford flipped it around and placed it on its face in the bed. He stopped to stare. There was a white envelope taped to the back of the painting. On top was written a single word.

Brad.

Finally. This was it.

Crawford swallowed several times. A part of him wanted to send one last curse at his old mentor for being so obscure with his hints that he took the risk of Crawford never finding the envelope, another part found comfort in the idea that Komarov had trusted his ability to pick up the clues so much that he had dared to leave so few. He might have called it an accident in the end — but then again, there were no accidents where precognitives were playing together.

Yet, now that he had what he had come looking for, his hands stalled at his sides. He kept staring at the envelope. He kept swallowing. Some small uncertainty inside him generated the idea of taking the envelope to Schuldig and asking the telepath to read the contents for him — like a filter, Schuldig could transmit the message for him to help him avoid the pain. But his cheeks flushed a deep crimson colour as soon as the idea had crossed his mind. What was he thinking? This message, whatever it was, was meant for Crawford and Crawford alone. Schuldig had nothing to do with it, and Crawford did not welcome a nosy telepath in his business.

He removed the tape carefully and flipped the envelope around to check that nothing was written on the backside. The surface was blank. The envelope wasn't sealed. Crawford opened it with trembling hands and pulled out its contents — two smaller envelopes and a single sheet of paper. He checked the two envelopes first. One of them was unsealed and blank, no name or other designation written on it. It was thin, could not contain many sheets. The other one... Crawford paused. It was thicker, sealed with wax, and there was a name — Sibyl.

Crawford's fingers twitched. He recognised the code name well. It belonged to one of Komarov's former students. She had left Rosenkreuz before Crawford had been deemed fit to move outside the fledgling quarters, so he had never known her while he had still been a student. But they had met briefly years later, and she had left a lasting impression. He knew she had been a favourite of Komarov's. An ugly churning feeling in his stomach resulted from noticing that her envelope was thick enough to suggest more than one slip of paper. It was all kinds of wrong that her name should come up in this context, written on a sealed envelope among the bundle of papers Komarov had left for Crawford to find.

She was intruding on something that should have been meant only for him.

Not willing to deal with his feelings over the matter right now, Crawford tossed the offending envelope on top of the painting and then retreated to the armchair with the rest of the treasure. He sank into the comfortable cushions and brooded suspiciously over the blank envelope for a second before setting it aside and picking up the single sheet of paper. It appeared to be a letter addressed to him. The hasty lines were written in the airy hand of a man in a hurry.

_Brad,_ it started, without a date or any other note that would place it in time and space. The following lines were uneven and sometimes sentences or even phrases within the sentences started from odd places, as though but little pieces of the letter at a time had been scribbled on the page without properly looking where the words landed. Yet the letter was coherent, even elaborate, and wholly without errors.

_Treat this document as my last will. I bequeath to you all my possessions, including my telepath's future. _

_You must know that I chose this. Do not think I had no opportunities to kill him. He was correct in believing that sentiment stayed my hand, but he never understood the sentiments of precognitive minds. Brad, you must understand that I left him alive for you. He has many resources. Your telepath will know how to extract them from him. You will have use for him, if you are to complete your dream._

_The next two days will decide your fate. If my calculations are correct, you will have company soon. Remember, the vultures will come quickly, but before them come the wolves. You must be prepared. Go through my files, they include everything you need to explain my death. Beth has the details. _

_I would wish you luck, but luck is for those who cannot see. You must look inside yourself, and inside your telepath. You have the answers._

_Enclosed are two letters. Please deliver them for me, my channels are monitored._

_Forgive me, if you can._

_Faithfully yours,_

_Dmitri Nikolayevich Komarov_

Crawford closed his eyes and wiped his face. The tears built pressure behind his eyelids. The words were swimming in his mind, swelling and sinking somewhere at the pit of his stomach, he felt sick and light-headed. He understood well every single word, they convinced him that he had not misunderstood his mentor when he had believed that Komarov had went to his death purposefully, with focus and determination, convinced that there was no other way.

Crawford was the fool for having ever believed otherwise. Perhaps between him and Dietrich, he was the worse fool. If Crawford was reading everything in between the lines correctly, Dietrich had been blind to his partner's decisions and desires because he had sensed the lingering affection, but Crawford had failed to foresee Komarov's death because he had wanted too much to find some other way to save his mentor.

How thoroughly unprofessional, how childish! And how foolish to sit here now crying over an inevitable fate that he could never have changed because the choices were not in his hands!

His eyelids fluttered open. He wiped away the moisture from his eyes and forced himself to set aside Komarov's letter. His gaze slid down to the unsealed envelope in his lap. Was it a mistake that there was no name? If Komarov had had but a few seconds, minutes here and there for compiling these letters while Dietrich was distracted, perhaps he had not had the time to complete the third one? Crawford hesitated for a moment. The letter might be private and not meant for his eyes, but if he didn't check, he wouldn't be able to deliver it.

He picked up the envelope and peeked carefully inside. He saw two slips of paper, one folded, the other smaller, with what looked like quick notes scribbled on top. He squinted. His name seemed to be written on the smaller paper. He slid two fingers inside and pulled out the note.

_Brad,_

_I leave up to your discretion when and if you feel he deserves to see this letter._

Crawford knew, just then. This letter was for Dietrich. He stared at the blank envelope for good two minutes without moving. The note didn't exactly instruct him one way or the other, it didn't encourage any more than discourage him from taking a look.

But given that Komarov must have known that his clue would be enough for Crawford to understand who the recipient of the letter was, had Komarov expected Crawford not to read it?

Then again, how was he to decide when and if Dietrich deserved his partner's last words, if he didn't know what they were?

Curiosity and the need to know overrode respect for the older men's privacy. Crawford pulled the letter out. It was just a single sheet of paper just like his own letter, but it was much shorter.

_Moy bies,_

_I would ask you to forgive my cruelty, but we are long past such meaningless words. We have both made our choices. _

_Your single-minded purpose has brought you here, now let it take you forward. You can still have the destiny you always believed you deserve. Listen to the children. They share your dream; perhaps you infected them with it. They will guide you through this, if you let them._

_I put my remaining faith in the man I loved. I pray that he still lives._

_Mitya_

Crawford was left staring at the last short paragraph. He struggled to take it seriously. The word "love" was rarely spoken within the walls of Rosenkreuz, and Crawford had never really believed that Komarov could truly return affection for a creature that had kept him prisoner for so long. This confession of devotion seemed unlikely. Coupled with the note Komarov had left for Crawford, Crawford couldn't help but wonder whether these were nothing but empty words intended to guide Dietrich's loyalties in Crawford's favour.

Would Dietrich believe them? Crawford pursed his lips. Komarov was not a fool. He would not have written something like this if he didn't have reason to think it would make an impact.

Crawford shook his head and slipped the letter back into the envelope. He doubted it would give Dietrich any comfort. He surmised that he might use it like a hammer to put a few more nails in the coffin that would lock Dietrich's feelings into a cage of regret. How long would that last? Would even a loss of this magnitude be enough to change Dietrich's deceiving heart? Crawford wasn't sure he really believed it.

He glanced at the letter Komarov had addressed to him.

_I bequeath to you all my possessions, including my telepath's future._

What did that really mean? Komarov discussed using Dietrich to realise a dream, and Crawford knew what he meant by it. Crawford wanted to be free from the clutches of the dark organisation, not because he cared about what became of the world but because he wanted to choose his own future. Blind faith in a brighter future had built the Order, and it would guide the steps of everyone who ever served it, but Crawford had no faith inside him. He had seen too much — and it was obvious that the same was true for Dietrich.

But to trust Dietrich? To trust the man who had tried to take everything from him? To trust a destroyer without remorse — phaugh! It was too late for Dietrich to ask for forgiveness, even if he meant it, and Crawford barely believed that Dietrich could ever truly mean it for more than a single haunted breath.

What had Komarov been thinking? Did he really suggest a long-term partnership? Crawford mused on the possibilities. He hadn't really planned on letting Dietrich live after they had sorted out the situation at hand. Once Dietrich had helped Crawford to get his team back and once Crawford had re-established his position with the Elders, he had no more use for the treacherous telepath.

_...including my telepath's future._

Was that a licence to do as he pleased with Dietrich, or a silent plea to care for a pet Komarov had once cherished? And even if it was the latter — would Crawford dare to honour his mentor's last wish?

Crawford rubbed his temples and heaved a quiet sigh. He would have a great many decisions and plans to make.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** This is a good moment to note that some parts of this chapter (as of course some parts of other chapters too) refer to some stuff that's happened in other installments of the storyverse. Sibyl is an original character introduced in a story currently posted on my project site schwarzworks dot dreamwidth dot org and on Archive Of Our Own. I've more or less stopped cross-posting new work here on ffnet except for this story, and _Case of the Red Demon / Operation Oracle_ and _Trouble For Two _continuums, because this platform isn't really very suitable for my series. If anyone wants direct links or more specifics, feel free to PM me. :)


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